Transformers Ultimates
by Titanmaster 117
Summary: Follow the tale of the Autobots and the Decepticons, in a massive reboot to the G1 universe, where nothing is as it seems, and the lines between good and evil are blurred forever (Major retelling of the G1 universe).
1. Prologue- Legacy

**I do not own Transformers, only this fanfic. all rights go to their respective owners.**

Fate _rarely call upon us at a moment of our choosing. That much in our life is certain._

 _On a world of iron and steel, millions of beings live in a constant state of fear. For many dozen millennials, one being has held the power of a mighty empire in his hands, and his alone, ruling through tyranny and suffering. Billions of sentient creatures across this empire are treated as cattle, and are constantly sent to the slaughterhouse, while those who oppose the tyranny from its outside have long since been crushed._

 _Yet now, a new path emerges. An insurgency is rising, drawing many outcasts of the empire to its banner. Many who were long banished from their homes have now come together to fight the tyranny, yet they throw many lives into disarray, creating confusion, and uncertainty._

 _To not only those in the empire of sin, but to all those who live in fear across the known cosmos, what was once a clear future has become an uncertain path..._

[[[[[]]]]]

 **author's notes**

 **In this story, I shall only be using transformers characters from the main G1 universe, so do keep that in mind, however, I will be using a few OCs in my story as well. Also, I will be using movieverse characters as well, since they will already have G1 counterparts. However, if I use a movieverse character, like Nitro Zeus, Dreadbot, or subgroup like the Infernocons, and they don't have G1 counterparts, then they are to be considered as G1 counterparts, and not directly from the movieverse. Also, if there are any characters that have the same name as each other, I will either make slight alterations to their name, or change it to another name that they have to avoid confusion. (it's best to have TFWiki as a sourcebook, as most of my information will be coming from there).**


	2. A new beginning: Let's head out

**4 million years ago.**

 **Cybertron.**

 **Iacon.**

 _Cybertron. A metallic jewel in the universe, and the home of a fleeting, crumbling remnant of a once mighty empire. Very few in the known cosmos know of why, or how it exists, but what is important is that, be it of magic, science, or some other element in the universe, it exists, and it thrives, but not of creatures of flesh and bone, but of sentient machines of steel and iron. Creatures who can shift their bodies to whatever shape they desire, to best suit their purpose. They are more complex than even we can imagine. They truly are more than meets the eye._

 _Yet beneath this once glistening utopia, it's darkness brews unendingly. For many a millennia, the population of the Cybertronian empire lived under a ruthless autocracy, who's ruler wasn't afraid to put down anyone who he perceived as a threat. Answering to him was a few loyal subjects, and a massive army of lifeless Vehicons, that enforced his rule onto the populace. Concentration camps and torture pits were common place, as soulless automatons rounded up anyone perceived as a threat, and all that anyone could do, was watch, as the autocracy began to commit genocide on all who oppose them._

 _That was before, though._

 _Now, an uprising is beginning. An armed, bold, and deadly militia of outcasts and exiles is rising, not afraid of the autocracy and their armies. From a hidden base far in the outskirts of the empire, they strike out against the tyranny, spreading hope to the oppressed, and fear to those few who still remain loyal to the tyranny. A Grand Uprising is starting._

 _Yet our story begins not with these individuals, but with a simple transformer in Iacon. An average info clerk by the name of Orion Pax. Or, as some people call him..._

"Optimus!"

Orion quickly looked to the left-hand side of his desk to see the Cassettebot, Rewind standing there, holding a datapad in his hand, his blue visor lighting up his face.

"Rewind", sighed Orion through his faceplate, with an exasperated look in his eyes, "how many times have I told you that I hate being called that?"

He then spread out his fingers and flashed his hands at Rewind, "1...2...3...more than the amount of fingers than I have. Which means more than eight."

"You mean ten?"

"No, eight. thumbs don't count."

"Honestly 'Optimus', you can be weird sometimes", said Rewind with a smile behind his faceplate. Orion was one of his oldest friends, and one thing that Rewind had learnt over the years is that it is always fun to annoy him when he doesn't want to be annoyed.

"Even so", continued Orion, not caring enough to argue, "what is it? I'm quite busy."

"Well, I've been trying to tell you for the last 40 seconds that it's closing time, but you zoned in to your work. Again. For like, the seventh time this week", Rewind muttered that last part as he started heading to the door of Orion's office, "Come on, it's a Friday night. Lets grab the others, head over to the white flame, and make a day of it. Or night. Or whatever."

"Oh, well, you go on ahead. I've still got a bit of stuff to get done", replied Orion as Rewind walked out the door, "I'll catch up with you."

"Suit yourself", said Rewind, and a moment later, he was gone.

Orion quickly started to close his documents (and made sure to delete his browser history) and shut down his laptop. Placing it in a compartment in his back, he then turned off the lights, and locked up his office.

A few minutes later, he was outside of the archive centre, and was driving down the main street in his truck form. As he drove, he took in the scenery: Great Cannon and Sand-Storm were sitting by a barrel fire, Diablo was being kicked out of his hut for a house by two Vehicons, Cerberus, Formikon and Double Punch were wandering aimlessly through the filth ridden streets, and the two diminutive Cyberdroids Convobat and Megalligator were being arrested by two other Vehicons.

All the while, Orion was forced to drive through increasing piles of debris and rubbish, and sometimes through murky polluted water pools that had formed in the road, between shanty huts that had been hastily set up, and between bots of all shapes and sizes.

Orion sighed to himself. Iacon, a once glistening city (At least, from what he'd heard from the few reliable records that still existed beyond Nominus Prime's rule), now reduced, like every other place on the planet, to a Shanty town gone to seed.

Yep. Just another normal day in paradise.

 **There we go. Another chapter down. If you didn't know any of the people that were featured in this chapter, look them up on TFWiki. Other than that, have a good one.**


	3. A new beginning: Uneventful events

**The White Flame**

On a planet like Cybertron, where corruption lurked in almost every crevice of the government, sanitation was hardly a thing, people were being driven from their homes, those same homes were literal shacks made out of whatever people could find, and the closest thing to proper law enforcement was the CCP (Which was only operating thanks to Prowl's anti-corruption policies), the Vehicon hordes, or Lockdown's private army of mercenaries, there were few places where bots could just set aside their worries and fears, and just let their frustrations out. At least, in a safe manner.

The White Flame was one of those places. Thanks to Maccadam's Old Oil House becoming a high end meet up place in the Great Dome, reserved exclusively for the elitists who live in the Celestial Spires, and also Sentinel Prime and his associates when they visit Iacon from their Metroplex base in Rodion, the White Flame has become a place of great importance to the people of Iacon. Though it was generally a clumsily put together shack of spare parts, nuts and bolts, to many, it felt like home. Owned by Artfire, Stepper, and the two Cyberdroids Nightstick and Fracas, the bar was essentially a large room, made of mismatching plates of metal, held up by several thin metal columns, with several sets of tables and chairs scattered across the large room, and a sitting area at the front of the building. On the opposite side of the large room was the bar, where the best quality drinks in Iacon sat (they were all cheap knockoffs of the real thing, but at this point, no one could be bothered to tell the difference), and at the bar side, there were several stools for people who were too lazy to find an actual seat. Today, however, these seats were taken by a certain group of five individuals...

"-And then I said to him," exclaimed Swerve in a loud and exited tone, as he sloshed his drink around, causing some of the purple liquid to splash onto Bumblebee, "Buddy, if you think I'm gonna move anymore of this weird anime crap for you, ya got another thing coming for ya!"

"No you didn't", said Bumblebee, grabbing a napkin and trying to wipe the Engel off, though it only commingled his yellow paint and the purple engex together.

"Lickety-Split is intensely protective of her anime collection", said Orion, his tone neutral, "That crazy Otaku would have flip-kicked you in the jaw if you said that to her. And you aren't missing your jaw, so...yeah", it was true. Lickety-Split once kept blabbering on about how she was a Crystal City resident at heart, and when Orion had jokingly mocked the crazy weeb about it, he ended up pressing charges of assault. That was a weird day in the courtroom.

"What, no", protested Swerve, "I totally did say that."

"Did you?" sarcastically asked Bumblebee.

"Yeah."

"Did you really?"

"...No."

"Didn't think so."

"Jeez Bee", sighed Swerve, "What's your problem? I just wanted to talk."

"That's my problem! You talking all the time! Every minute, you're yammering on about something either fake, dumb, or completely over exaggerated! Hell, why do you think no employer in their sane mind wants to hire you for any job that has the slight bit of socialisation!"

"Not even call centres want you", muttered Chromedome, as he retracted his faceplate to take a sip of his drink, "Or suicide hotlines, thank Primus."

"Oi, no need to go on a diatribe against me Bee-Bee-"

"Only. My. Girlfriend. Gets. To call. Me that", stated Bumblebee.

"...Alright then...anyway", Swerve exclaimed as he threw his hands in the air, "Lets just forget about our problems and just enjoy the night while we still ca-"

{SMASH}

It took Swerve 2 seconds to realise that he had had his drink in his hand. It took him another few seconds to realise that it had flown out of his hand, and onto a bot.

"Hey, who did that! I'll have you know that I have my Communicom with me, and I'm not afraid to tweet this on the Big Conversation!"

"We get it, Fireball, you have a new phone, and you can do stuff on it. Now shut up about it already!"

"But Skram, it's new and stuff..."

Swerve then slammed his head on the table, as Bumblebee, Orion, Chromedome, Rewind, and the current bartender Stepper looked at him with still faces.

"You know that's going on your tab, right?" Asked Stepper, casually wiping down a wet glass with a cloth.

"I know", muttered Swerve, not moving from his position on the table.

"This is why we can't do nice things", muttered Rewind.

"At least we still have the TV to watch, otherwise we would have to listen to you babble on all day", said Orion as he watched the TV at the top of the bar. He had honestly gotten a little sloshed himself, though he was good at keeping it under wraps.

"Sod off", murmured Swerve as he sat back up, "Why do I still fraternise with you guys?"

"I dunno", said Bumblebee as he watched the TV, "But I'm beginning to wonder..."

* * *

Meanwhile, all the way in the abandoned streets of Kaon, where criminals and thugs of all walks of life hide away from the prying eyes of the government, agents of a rising insurgency were running for their lives, hunted by those who hide in the shadows. This was Spinster, and his Cyberdroid partners Singe and Hairsplitter, spies for the Exiled, a rebel faction of mercenaries, outcasts, and individuals banished from society, and right now, their cover had been blown.

"I'm picking up more Vehicons heading our way!" Exclaimed Singe, with fear in his voice.

"From which direction?" Asked Hairsplitter.

"Every direction!"

As they ran through the street, a Vehicon starfighter swooped down from the sky, and flew down the derelict street, spraying blue laser fire at them. One energy blast hit Singe, causing the Cyberdroid to detonate into millions of pieces. Spinster quickly pulled his sniper rifle from his back, and fired a purple blast of energy directly into the cockpit of the fighter, killing its Vehicon pilot, and causing the ship to smash into a derelict old building next to them.

"Singe!" cried out Hairsplitter.

"There's nothing we can do for him now", said Spinster, as he ran towards the crashed Starfighter, opened up it's cockpit, pulled it's dead pilot out, and began to hotwire the controls.

"Except make sure that his death wasn't in vain", frustratingly said Hairsplitter.

"No clichés, Hairsplitter, please. We're surrounded by a horde of emotionless machines who would want nothing more to kill us. Violently. And painfully. So I would like it if you didn't start quoting off movie clichés."

"Right, yeah, sorry", apologised Hairsplitter as the tiny Cyberdroid ran up to Spinster, and sat atop the downed ship, "What are you even doing?"

"I figured", began Spinster as he began to hotwire the controls of the ship, "That if I link the communications relay on this ship to, well, what's left of my satellite phone, I can boost the signal to the EHC, and transmit what I've found to them."

"What?" frustratingly asked Hairsplitter, "That's stupid. One, our satellite phones were destroyed by Mindset and his Vehicons when we broke out of that facility. Two, those relays on a Starfighter have terrible range, so the signal will never get off world-"

"Then we'll just contact another agent on the planet. I'm pretty sure Switchblade is still on Cybertron. we can boost the signal to him, then he can send the data to the EHC."

"And if he isn't on Cybertron?"

"Well, lets just hope he is."

As the sound of marching began to boom all around them, Spinster continued to hotwire the ship, hoping that if they died, then at least it not be in vain.

* * *

 _"-Another military convoy in the Expansion Zone, this time near the Outer Orion Cluster, was attacked by a group of terrorists known as the Exiled"_ , stated Blaster- Sentinel's primary propaganda artist- on the TV, it's glow lighting up the dimly lit bar, _" This group of extremists has been disrupting military actions in recently rebellious zones in the edges of the expansion zone for 300 years now, and now it has delayed the main military arm, Butcher Division, from bringing back order to the Outer Colonies. Our glorious leader, Sentinel Prime the first, has now redirected Butcher Division to deal with these traitors. In other news, a Cybertronian Civil Police unit known as the Jet corps, consisting of Dark Jet of Rodion, Shadow Jet of Kaon, Moon Jet of Nyon, and Flare Jet of Polyhex, has officially been reported missing. They were last seen near a nightclub in the town of Yuss as of 2 days ago, at 9:37PM Iacon standard time. If you have any information on their whereabouts, please contact your local CCP station, and report your findi-"_

A glass of pink liquid then smashed against the screen, surprising everyone at the bar. They then looked behind them to see a large green, white and black bot leaning against one of the metal columns, clearly drunk. Next to him was another bot, pulling on his arm, indicating that it was time for them to go.

"'Ey Stepper, turn that scrap off", said the large bot, "Everyday, it's the damn same. Some bot goes missin', an' the cops investigate it (its a shitty excuse for a case investigation, can I just say). But the next day, they end up in a ditch somewhere with a bullet hole in their head, and the cops write it off, an' everything just moves on. Then the cycle begins again. Rinse, dry, fuckin' repeat, I tell ya!"

"Sixshot", said the large bot's friend, clearly worried.

"Back off, Ursa Major. I'm fine. Really."

"Hey", called out Chromedome as he got up off his stall, "I think you should pay a little respect to the people who were watching that."

"Chromedome", began Rewind, "I don't think you should-"

"Not now Rewind. I've got this."

"I think you should listen to your little boyfriend, Autobot", said Sixshot, as he pushed himself off the column, and walked up to Chromedome, "Yeah, that's right. I see your badge. You think you can just wear it and think you got power over me."

"Well, I am an officer of the law, so I would assume that you would give me at least a little respect", stated Chromedome, not deterred by the larger bot, "Also the little guy is my Husband, so... yeah."

"You think I'm gonna give you shit because you're a cop. Sorry bucko, the world don't work like that anymore. Everybot's got a transgression against another, and everyone wants ta kill each other over some stupid reason."

"Yeah, well that's what me and my police buddies are for. Stopping the bad guys from killing people."

"Sure, because bein' a cop means so much in this day an' age."

Meanwhile, while Sixshot and Chromedome were arguing, Fracas was calling the cops, and was told that they would be at the White Flame in a few minutes.

* * *

"Switchblade, if you are receiving this message, this is Spinster. I'm sending you this message because my partners and I have acquired information on Sentinel that could finally rally the people to our side", recorded Spinster as he quickly typed in Switchblade's transmission codes onto the patchwork computer, "The people are at a breaking point, and the information that I am attaching to this message will finally give them the will to rise up against their yolk of oppression."

"Contact!" shouted Hairsplitter as a Black Ops Vehicon emerged from a building down the street. The BO Vehicon then aimed its built in energy rifle at Hairsplitter, but he quickly fired his plasma revolver, sending a purple blast of plasma through the Vehicon's upper body, causing it to detonate, sending green fluid over the surrounding area.

"I'm afraid to say that this may be my last transmission", sombrely stated Spinster, "But I want you to know, that everything I've done, I've done for Cybertron. For our people. Spinster out."

Spinster then ended the recording, attached the information to the message, and then pressed send, before a Vehicon Rocket Trooper spotted them, and fired a missile at them, destroying the ship, and sending Spinster flying. Spinster then quickly targeted the Rocket Trooper with his sniper, and shot the drone in the head.

"Hairsplitter! The ship's been destroyed, and I don't know if my transmission went through-"

Spinster looked to Hairsplitter, only to see that his Cyberdroid partner had been destroyed in the explosion, with half of his body incinerated in the blast, and the blue shine in his eyes was gone. As his body turned from dark blue, light blue, and white, to a dull grey, Spinster grabbed a thin sheet of metal debris that was lying on the ground, and placed it on top of his deceased partner, bending it so it wouldn't fly off. When he was done memorialising the dead, he found that more Vehicons were emerging from the buildings, all heavily armed, and surrounding him.

"Well then", said Spinster as he charged up his sniper rifle, "I may go down, but I'm sure as hell gonna take you all with me", well, so much for not using cliches.

The Vehicons began to fire at him, blue and purple streaks of Plasma lighting up the street from all directions. Spinster quickly jumped behind the burning wreckage of the Starfighter, and shot a BO Vehicon that was coming down the alleyway in the head. Another BO Vehicon quickly jumped up on top of the ship, and aimed its gun at Spinster, but he then shot it through the chest, and straight through its synthetic spark. He then heard the sound of a Vehicon flyer, and looked up to see several Vehicon Wall crawlers perching themselves on the walls on the alleyway. As the Wall Crawlers aimed their sniper sights at Spinster, he quickly jumped onto the top of the burning ship, avoiding their sniper blasts, and fired his own shots at the Wall Crawlers, killing all of them with perfect headshots. Spinster Quickly spun around to blast two approaching BO Vehicons in the head and chests, before looking up to see a Vehicon Mothership hanging in the sky, with Vehicon Gunships and fighters swarming out of its underside fighter compartments.

'Well, there goes the option of flying out of here', thought Spinster, as he grabbed a still-functioning Vehicon Rocket Trooper, and used it as a shield against two other NO Vehicons, then he threw it at one of them, and shot the other Vehicon in the head. He then punched a Vehicon in the head, deactivating it, and grabbed a piece of debris from the ground, and flung it at a Wall Crawler, cutting it's head clean off. He then grabbed a Vehicon from behind, grabbed its arms, and pulled them off, using them as clubs to beat down the hapless Vehicon. He then used his arm-clubs to beat down several other Vehicons, and then jumped up, grabbed on to a Wall Crawler in-flight, ripped its head off, and used its corpse as a way to fly around the area, picking off any Vehicons he could see. He then noticed a Vehicon heavy gunner heading his way, so he pulled out a grenade, steered the flying corpse in the direction of the heavy gunner, stuffed the grenade down the neck of the Walll Crawler, and jumped off, watching as the flying corpse collided with the heavy gunner, and detonated, destroying it and several nearby Vehicon Shotgunners in the process.

Suddenly, Spinster heard loud stomping from behind him, and flipped around to see 2 hulking Vehicon Titans approaching, and standing before them, their commander.

"Mindset", sneered Spinster. He remembered the mindless Autobot from earlier. He was the one who'd found them out. He took great pleasure in explaining this, though Spinster has absolutely no idea what he had said through his completely broken Cybertronian.

Mindset simply smirked, and looked up at the two hulking brutes, "Kill 'im."

The two towering mechs then aimed their gatling guns at Spinster, and opened fire, spraying a shower of Blue Plasma blasts at him. Spinster barely had any time to react before he was riddled with laser holes, the plasma ripping off pieces of his own body, and disintegrating other parts. One of the Titanss even deployed tracking mines, which travelled to Spinster and detonated, scattering what was left of him over a short distance.

The Titans ceased fire, and observed the area where Spinster once stood. All that was left of him, was a few scattered pieces of metal, the smell of burnt steel, and a pool of burning blue innermost energon.

* * *

"Oh yeah?" Asked Chromedome, who was beginning to get annoyed with the drunk bot.

"Yeah", stubbornly stated Sixshot, "'Kay, I can give ya a brief summary of the rules of bein' an Autobot these days: One- Act like one of those butt things that fleshies have. Two- Don't give a crap about anyone. Three- Kill anyone with the slightest political or social difference then you or the corrupt as hell government that you 'serve'. There, boom, the 3 golden rules, listed off by yours truly."

"Oh", yelled out one bar patron, "He's calling you out, son! Are you gonna take that?"

"Wipe-Out", said Artfire from behind the bar, "Shut up or get out. You're not helping the situation one iota."

"Sorry."

"You know what", said Chromedome, ignoring the banter, and glaring at Sixshot, staring straight into his optics, "You know nothing about me. You know nothing about me and my job. Hell, we've only just met, and I don't even know your name, so what right do you have to judge me based on what badge I wear on my chest?"

"That it?" asked Sixshot, "I was expecting a higher level of wit from someone who tries so hard ta sound smarter than he is. Because I ain't judging ya on a badge you wear. I'm judging ya on _the_ badge you wear. Being the Autobot badge. Right there. On your chest. And shoulders, surprisingly enough. Besides, I already know enough about bein' an Autobot ta make an assumption."

"Domey", said Rewind, who was now at his husband's side, "I really don't think-"

"Rewind, please", said Chromedome as he looked down at the Cassettebot, "I'll be fine. Trust me."

He then looked back at Sixshot, "So, you think you know so much about my job, and what I do?"

"Yeah, I do", sternly said Sixshot, "Ya wanna know how?"

"Sure, why the hell not?"

"'Cause I use to wear that badge."

"Well then... wait, what?"

"W-what?" queried Ursa Major, who was standing behind Sixshot. He then noticed all of the bots looking at the commotion, "Um, ignore him. He seems to have had a bit to much to drink-"

"Ursa, shut it", coldly said Sixshot, as he continued to stare down Chromedome with eyes of deep focus, "Let me ask you something: how old are you?"

"750000 years old", answered Chromedome with a questioning look on his face.

"Just as I thought", replied Sixshot, "You were born into Sentinel's rule, who had taken over from Nominus Prime's 6 million year rule of Corruption. You didn't see what it was like during the rule of Anima Bellator Maximus, or Aequmm Prime, or even during the time of the Thirteenth Primes and the galaxy's crusaders against the worshippers of Unicron."

"The Unicron Wars!" Exclaimed Rewind in surprise, "You were there! But that was 20 million years ago, and no one rumoured to have been around in those times are alive. No one knows if it was even real as its all rumours and fables and that's not your point is it, Mr Drunkbot?"

"There, little bot?" said Sixshot, "I wasn't just there, I was experiencing it! Living it! Fighting it! I was fighting side by side with the likes of Galvatron, Cyclonus, Rhinox, Scourge and his Sweeps,and the Convoy, like Flame Convoy, Galaxy Convoy, and Rhetoric Convoy. Together, we, along with the thirteen, all good Cybertronians, and all living things in our known space, fought against Megatronus, the Leigo Maximo, and the Heralds of Unicron, who threatened to tear away all that was good in the world. Once we were victorious, before she passed into her eternal slumber, Solus Prime dubbed us as 'the Knights of Cybertron', and the defenders of our galaxy as 'the warriors of the heavens'. Then Aequmm Prime lead us into a golden age, and we became 'Autobots: the Cybertronian Knights', while Anima Bellator Maximus united all the living things in the universe as one. Once, the name 'Autobot' used to mean something. But now... now..."

Suddenly, Sixshot backhanded Chromedome across the face so hard, that it sent him flying into the bar side, cracking his yellow visor and his faceplate, and shocking all of the bots around him and Sixshot.

"NOW IT MEANS NOTHING!"

"Domey", asked Rewind to a dazed Chromedome, "Are you okay?"

"Nothing but shame", continued Sixshot.

"Blimey", murmured Swerve.

"Yeah", replied Bumblebee, "That was a bit uncalled for."

"Oh, so you lot are just gonna stand there like a pack of morons", said Chromedome in a daze, as he gestured to Orion, Bumblebee, and Swerve, "10/10 friends you bastards are."

Orion then got between Sixshot and Chromedome, "Okay Mr Drunkatron, I think we've all seen enough, so why don't you go sit down and-"

Sixshot then pushed Orion aside, "Oh go kiss your friend's booboos. The adults are talking."

Sixshot then walked up to Chromedome, and knelt down next to him, "But, after all that happened in the last 7 million years, I choose not to remember it like that, I choose not to remember the ways of the Autobots as they are now."

Sixshot then stood up, and Looked down on Chromedome, towering over most of the Cybertronians in the bar, "I choose to remember the once great Autobots as what they once were: selfless warriors who fought for the freedom of the galaxy, against the forces that would seek to destroy everything. The warriors who fought against the darkness, instead of embracing it, The righteous warriors that the Autobots once were, and not what they have become."

Suddenly, a loud marching could be heard, and everyone in the bar turned to the open entrance of the shack, to see 2 police Vehicons walking in through the open entrance, coated in blue and grey paint, and with two lights on their shoulders, one being blue, and another being red. In their hands were plasma rifles, fully charged, and aimed at Sixshot.

"REPORTING TO DISTURBANCE", droned one of the Vehicons.

"Oh thank goodness", said Fracas, "I was afraid that things would escalate unnecessarily. Now, if you could please escort the drunk bot out of the premises-"

"Shut it, Cyberdroid", coldly said Sixshot, "You called the cops on me? Maybe I'll squash you right now."

"Sixshot", nervously said Ursa Major, "I seriously think that it's time to go-"

"Ursa", said Sixshot as he walked towards one of the Vehicons, "Trust me, this will be over in a minute."

"Please", said Chromedome, "Don't agrivate them..."

"Too late."

Sixshot quickly grabbed the plasma rifle from one of the Vehicons, and hit it over the head with it, causing the Vehicon to deactivate. Sixshot then smashed the other Vehicon to the floor, pressed his foot against its chest, aimed his rifle at its head, and pulled the trigger, sending a blue burst of energy through the Vehicon's head, causing green energon analogue and small chunks of metal to go everywhere. Before Sixshot could savour his victory, he heard footsteps behind him, and quickly spun around to see another police droid walking towards him, plasma rifle charged, and aimed at sixshot.

Sixshot's suddenly realised the reality of the situation, "Don't you-"

Now, if Sixshot had reacted quicker, maybe the Vehicon wouldn't have pulled the trigger. Maybe it wouldn't have shoot off two bursts of plasma. Maybe they wouldn't have pierced his head and spark, and maybe he wouldn't have crumpled to the ground, as his soul left his metal body.

But, of course, that's just a maybe.

* * *

"Find out where dat data is", ordered Mindset to a Vehicon Commander, who, along with several other BO Vehicons, walked over to the smouldering wreakage of the downed Starfighter, and began to examine the bodies, and the still burning wreak.

"SIR", droned the Vehicon Commander, "THIS SHIP HAS BEEN COMPLETELY DESTROYED. ONE OF OUR UNITS SAW THE SPY USING IT AS A TRANSMITTER. IT IS NOW IMPOSSIBLE TO TRACE WHERE THE SIGNAL WENT-"

"That's because ya Lugnuts somehow calculated that it'da be best ta shoot then aim instead of da otha way 'round!" exasperated Mindset.

As a shuttle landed behind him, Mindset turned around and boarded it, "Sentinel ain't going to be happy about this. Though I will say, there is 'nother way of trackin' it..."

As the shuttle took off, Mindset felt both fear and hope. Fear of what his boss will do to him for this failure, and hope that maybe, if his hunch pays off, he can get back into Sentinel's good books...

* * *

As Sixshot's body fell to the ground, leaking energon over the floor, every one was in shock; Fracas was in disbelief, Fireball took a picture (Jerk), Ursa Major had to hold onto a beam for support, and everyone else just stood where they were, too scared to move.

As two more Vehicons showed up, and dragged Sixshot's corpse out of the building, Chromedome looked at the other Vehicon, "You didn't have to kill him."

"HE WAS ARMED."

"But you didn't have to kill him!"

"IRRELEVANT", said the Vehicon as it walked out of the building, "THE TASK IS COMPLETE."

The Vehicon then exited the building, leaving everyone to collect their thoughts and process what has happened, and a large pool of blood on the floor.

Meanwhile, on a building opposite the White Flame, far beyond sight, several individuals were observing the situation, with very keen eyes.

"Do we intervene?" asked one of the individuals, his purple blade glistening in the setting sun, though his body stayed in shadows.

 _"That won't be necessary, Snaptrap"_ , answered their leader, _"Everything is, hehe, already falling into place..."_


	4. A new beginning: Morality issues

**Just to let y'all know, this next chapter is essentially continuity porn, so if you have anything against that, why would you read this in the first place. Like, seriously.**

* * *

If one were to compare the looks of Cybertron now, to what they once were before the end of the Golden Age, and rule of Nominus Prime, even that of a protoform would immediately be able to tell the differences, both major and minor. Once, Cybertron was glistening and shining, with Cybertronians new and old going about their lives. Disorder was minor, and there were few wars that took place during the Golden Age, with the few ones being the Master Wars and a few small bushfire conflicts.

Cybertron was the pinnacle of a utopia, with floating cities, nature reserves of exotic alien plants, massive overarching architecture, and even a forest to boot, which took up a good portion of the western hemisphere, filled with techno-organic plants of all shapes and sizes, and robotic animals that feasted on both energon, plants, and prey. The cities of Cybertron were also once so polished and shiny, that they glistened in the sunlight, bathing those who stood below them in their reflection of the light. The streets were always clean and waste free, and traffic, footpath and road, was always bustling, but never overflowing.

Many of Cybertron's Colonies flourished during the Golden Age, with Caminus becoming the world of art and culture, and also a place where all religions could flourish without conflict or fear. Master Star was a hazardous world, filled with sandstorms, acid rain, heatwaves, and whirlwinds, but after the Master Wars, between Delta Magnus's Autobot division known as the Primal Vanguard, and the Titanmasters (Cybertronians who experimented with members of a powerful subspecies of Cyberdroids known as Titan Masters, and forced them to undergo a process known as Binary Bonding, where they forcefully became the heads of the Cybertronians, granting them extremely unstable powers), Master Star was eventually colonised, and renamed Rebirth, and became a place of technological innovation, and many new technologies were created in the city known as Fortress. Even the planet of Micro was eventually colonised, and became the birthplace of the Micromasters, when instead of being naturally born, various clusters of sparks began to form over the planet, leading to the creation of a new race of Cybertronians, who were small, but fuel efficient, like their minibot counterparts, and unlike the fullsized macromasters (This 'Hotspots' and their sudden apperance baffled Scientists, but lead many others to speculate that it was a sign of Primus, or some other god).

In the Golden Age, each colony would have it's own fair form of government, and each government would have a representative, and that representative would sit on the Council of Worlds, where they would discuss on how to make their civilisation greater, and fairer than before.

Cybertronians and all their subspecies got on well with all the other civilisations in the known cosmos, from the barbaric women of Femax, to the peaceful Klozians of Klo. There was no dark side to the great civilisation, no shady underground, no corruption in the government, no dirty deals, no high rates in crime and disorder. The Golden Age truly was a Golden Age, where everything was fair, and Cybertron and her Colonies were united under be it Primus, or another god.

Then, Nominus Prime took over, the Golden Age of Aequmm prime and Anima Bellator Maximus ended, and the nightmares began.

Nominus Prime was extremely ambitious, and sought to turn Cybertron into the throne of a galaxy spanning empire, with him as it's head. Quickly, Nominus disbanded the Council of Worlds, and began to force the will of Primus (The most common religion at the time, and at the present) onto the entirety of the Cybertronian civilisation. At first, most, if not all, were heavily against this, with the Eukarian known as Slammoth taking up the title of Big Convoy, and leading the colony of Eukaris into open rebellion, sparking the Beast Wars, and others openly opposing him. But quickly, all of Nominus's opponents were removed, either by imprisonment, execution, or sudden disappearance.

Nominus then had many of the original Micromasters that were born from the hotspots rounded up and experimented on, to which none of them survived, and began a purge of the Micro born Micromasters, believing them to be abominations. Soon, all of the Micromasters that were born from the Hotspots on Micro were killed, leading to fear of Nominus Prime, and growing hate of his rule. Since Nominus served in the Master Wars, he developed a hate for all Titan Masters, and had them all hunted down and exterminated, leading to the survivors going into hiding amongst the Cyberdroid populace, and all Cyberdroids coming under suspicion of being Titan Masters, resulting in frequent executions of innocent Cyberdroids.

Funds from the government were subverted from basic essentials, to the military, leading to a rapid expansion of the armed forces, and basic needs for the public degrading, leading to poverty and unrest. A program for rapid Cybertronian expansion via rapid breeding lead to cities becoming overcrowded, and the floating cities of Iacon, Kaon, Helex, Rodion, Old Polyhex, Vos, and Stanix were dropped to the ground, and the massive forest of the western hemisphere was destroyed, to make way for the creations of the cities of New Polyhex, Tarn, and Kalis.

Nominus sent his ever expanding Cybertronian military to take control of all the worlds that they could find, and incorporate them into the now growing empire. Worlds like Athenia, Gigantron and Paradron were annexed into the growing Cybertronian empire, who had now discarded the Autobot name, and soon, a large portion of space became the territory of the new Cybertronian empire, headed by the religious fanatic known as Nominus Prime.

These aggressive tactics put the Galactic Council, Black Block Consortia, and the Solstar Order on edge, and they temporarily set aside their differences, and began to wage a shadow war against Nominus's government for 4 million years, until the last million years of Nominus's rule, where he developed Tox-En, a deadly bioweapon, which would kill all it comes into contact with by liquefying them from the inside out, and corrode even the strongest of buildings. This lead to a hundred year civil war in the Cybertronian Empire, known as the Grand Uprising, or the Second Cybertronian Civil War, between Nominus Prime's forces lead by Nominus and Nova Major, and the new Autobots, lead by the resurgent Big Convoy and covert Solstar Order operatives, headed by Stardrive and Rom.

Unfortunately for most, the grand Uprising failed, with Nominus Prime ruling for another million years, Big Convoy presumed dead, the New Autobots crushed, the Solstar Order withdrawing it's support to continue their war against the Dire Wraiths in the Dark Nebula, and the Cybertronian species halved, though the Tox-En was destroyed, with few sources of it remaining, and any remaining samples of it were under lock and key. Much of the planet was left in poor condition thanks to the Tox-En bombardments, and the cities in the western hemisphere were left in ruins. Kaon was abandoned, and left as a hideout for criminals and thugs alike, and Iacon became overcrowded with refugees, leading to degrading standards in living qualities, to the point where anyone with running energon in their home was considered to be running a 5 star resort. Few nature reserves remained on the planet, with almost all of them rotten and dead thanks to the Tox-En gas. In fact, there was only one nature reserve on the entire planet left, being the Alpha Preserve in Iacon, though it was overgrown and poorly kept.

Even the colonies felt the effects of the Grand Uprising, with some colonies, like Caminus and Paradon, were directly in the line of fire in the war, and were devastated, while the other colonies were suffering the after effects of the war, as Nominus Prime sent military forces to the worlds in an attempt to stamp out all opposition to him, as to avoid a future uprising. The colony of Chaar was reduced to ash and cinder, while the world of Athenia was destroyed, and reborn into the trash world of Junkion. The world of Rebirth had it the worst though. In a year long campaign during the Grand Uprising, dubbed 'the Scouring of Rebirth', the entire planet was burnt down, it's single city of Fortress was completely destroyed, and all of the planet's Cybertronian colonists were killed.

Eventually, Nominus Prime and his cabal of followers were assassinated after 6 million years of rule, but they were replaced by a seemingly worse ruler and his cabal. For the last million years, Sentinel Prime and his small group of followers have been ruling over Cybertron with an iron fist. Creating an army of synthetic machines to do his bidding, Sentinel has enforced a corrupt and broken system to rule over the once great Cybertronian civilisation, which was becoming weaker every year. The name 'Autobot' was now used as a badge of shame for cops who worked for the government, and not as a symbol of honour, and civilisation began to collapse, with gangs and thugs running amuck in the streets, and killings becoming more common than ever.

Now, rebel and terrorist factions have begun to pop up across what was left of the Cybertronian empire, ready to fight the sorry state of the government, which had been reduced to a remnant after the Grand Uprising. Experimental weapons, derelict ships, and age old drones were salvaged from the remnants of the old order, ready to be used in a new fight. Eventually, several rebel and terrorist cells united to form the Exiled, a powerful pseudo-military faction of outcasts, rebels, terrorists, and individuals coming out of hiding. Together, with salvaged weapons, old ships, and new soldiers, they poise themselves carefully against the tyrannical government, ready to begin a new war, for the liberation of both themselves, and their species.

But you already knew this didn't you?

Well, at least part of it, anyway. All that stuff about the Exiled being a militant group made up of, well, exiles (Otherwise, why would they be called that?), and Sentinel being a bit of a dick. I just thought that it would be nice to give you lot a bit of a history lesson. Y'know, a bit of world building, making the universe feel more alive, then have a tale of a group pulling together to survive.

Or, at least, try.

So it should be fun. To watch their journey of sacrifice, death, betrayel, love, hate, and violence. A classic tale of good vs evil, with a few twists, mind you. Can't have a good story without some shocks, now, can we?

So, without further ado, let us return to our group of protagonists, in the streets of a lowly slum. When we last left off, they had just seen a Cybertronian called Sixshot die right in front of them, so let's see how they do...

* * *

 **Cybertron  
Iacon  
Border Regions  
** **Jan-Ja district  
** **Decagon Plaza**

"We should have helped him", said Orion as he, Rewind, Chromedome, Bumblebee, and Swerve walked past the old Decagon Plaza, which was rusty, dented, and covered in graffiti. The 5 of them walked through the abandoned streets, filled with debris, rubbish, and filled with puddles of water. The debris was so thick in some areas, that they occasionally tripped over some of it (Swerve ended up face planting into the ground because of it, at one intersection). At least an hour ago, they had watched a drunk bot in the White Flame killed right in front of them, and now the shock was only just coming over them. They had to stay behind for a bit to be questioned by the local CCP officers, but they were let go only a few minutes ago.

"There was nothing we could do", said Chromedome, still sporting the cracks on his visor and faceplate. A purple mark had begun to form around the cracks on his faceplate, indicating a bruise.

"What do you mean there was nothing we could? An innocent bot was killed right in front of us, barely an hour ago, and all that you can say is there was nothing we could do?" called out Orion in a fume, "Is this because of the punch? Are you concussed or something?"

"I'm not concussed! (At least, I don't think so). What I'm saying is the truth. There was nothing we could have done for him. He decided to piss off the lifeless killer robots, and now he's dead. Classic action=reaction formula. If we intervened, we would have ended up where he is now: 5 feet below!"

"You're a cop", said Orion as he stepped in front of Chromedome and stopped in the middle of the street, "Couldn't you have pulled rank or something and told the Vehicons to stop before he took a laser blast to the head?"

"No, I couldn't have. Those things don't answer to the CCP, they answer to Sentinel, or whatever central network thing they're connected to. To them, the CCP are just a nuisance that only interferes with doing their master's work. There's no actual way to stop them, other than shooting them in the head, which then would provoke all of the other Vehicons to target you and kill you. There's no way to stop them. Really."

"That's not an excuse."

"It is so an excuse!"

Chromedome then shoved Orion to the side, and continued to walk, "Besides, that guy brought it on himself. He decided to pick a fight with the killer robots instead of just going peacefully, so he was either extremely drunk, had a few circuits lose, or both, so lets just leave it at that, because I really need to sit down and take a headache chip (Primus my head hurts)."

"Why am I married to you, again?" asked Rewind, who started to catch up with Chromedome.

"Because you love me."

"Oh yeah."

"Wow", said Orion as he just stood still, "I always thought you were cold, Chromedome, but I didn't know you were also heartless."

Chromedome then stopped, turned around, looking back at Orion, and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't quite catch that. Could you please elaborate?"

"You know damn well what I mean. You're brushing this all off like it doesn't matter, and now I see why: you don't care about it. You don't see a point to giving a scrap about someone who just died, because you think that it's a waste of time, and that they probably had it coming. Hell, I think that on the inside, you probably laugh about it-"

Chromedome then walked up to Orion, and got up close to him threateningly, "Keep talking, slagface. I wanna see if you're stupid enough to say what you're about to say."

"Alright then, let me get straight to the point. You grown insensitive to the violence over the years, because of your job (which was a terrible choice of profession, mightn't I add), and now you've completely numb to the idea of sympathy for others when their friends die!"

"Well, I'm sorry if that upsets you 'Optimus', but I'm afraid that becoming a bit used to violence comes with the territory of being a cop! You tend to look at things a bit more logically instead of letting your emotions guide your every move."

"But that's the thing! You've been telling yourself that everyday for so long, chipping away at your soul every time you say it, until the day there's nothing left but an ugly husk. Well guess what buster, today's the damn day!"

"Oh, so you think you know me, Pax. You think that you have the right to judge me and the way I think just because of my job? I feel, Orion, for the people who have died around me. I'm not just some mindless machine who doesn't flinch when someone is killed. I grieve for the fallen, but I know not to blame myself when something isn't my fault."

"Uh", began Bumblebee as he turned around and transformed, "I'm gonna head back to the apartment and wait for you there. See you later Orion."

"Hey, wait up", said Swerve as he transformed and caught up with Bumblebee, "I'm coming too. Let these guys cool themselves off."

"Oh yeah right", said Orion, who was too focused in his argument with Chromedome to notice Swerve and Bumblebee leave, "'You grieve for them, like you know them. How would you even mourn for them if you don't know their own-"

"Sky Blast."

Orion looked bewildered at what Chromedome had just said, obviously not understanding what he just said, "What?"

"Doomwings. Zapmaster. Retrax. Dead-End. Rot-Gut. Armordillo. Survive. CatSCAN. Xeon. Octus. Zebres. Torsion. Greasepit. Exhaust. Aston. Spaceshot. Dropshot. Action. Sigil. Black-Out. Doomshot. Dinotron. Hopper. Iron Claw. Autostinger. Ego. Skat-Or. And now Sixshot (Yeah, I heard his friend say his name). Those are all of the names of those who I have seen die before me. Full sized, Micromaster, Cyberdroid. That's irrelevant. They were all Cybertronians that have died while I was around, either by my hand, or another's. And every night, I tell myself those names, so I don't forget the mistakes I've made over the last 750000 years. You think I have no soul, 'Optimus', well think again."

"That doesn't... that doesn't prove anything."

"Yes it damn well does!"

"Just because you know someone's name doesn't mean you care about them."

"That's true, but I do. And I care about the legacy they leave behind."

"Yeah, sure."

"What is going on in that drunken mind of yours that you are constantly trying to perceive me as the bad guy of this argument? What have I done wrong?"

"You know damn well what I'm mad about!"

"No, I seriously don't! (I swear, if you say that it's about what happened in the White Flame, I'm gonna sock you in the fragging face)."

"That's enough", said Rewind as he placed himself between the two taller bots, and looked up at them, "Both of you calm down. Orion, what Chromedome's saying makes sense-"

"WELL IT DOESN'T TO ME!" screamed Orion as he grabbed Rewind by his shoulders, scaring the smaller bot, "When we were in the White Flame, and that poor bot was gunned down, all we did was stand there and watch as he died. Why didn't we do anything? Why didn't I do anything?! So ex- slagging- scuse me, if unlike everyone else present, I have a little thing called emotions-"

Suddenly, Chromedome wheeled back, and punched Orion in the face, sending him flying back, and landing front up into the ground, covering himself in dirty water, and a few pieces of rubbish. Chromedome then grabbed his hand, dragged him to the old entrance to the Decagon, and slammed him against the wall by his neck. Orion's faceplate was now cracked, dented, and bleeding, and his nose was also cracked and leaking energon, staining his faceplate.

"Orion Pax, you will listen to me, and you will listen good", sternly said Chromedome in obvious exasperation of the current situation, "There was nothing we could do for that bot back in the bar, and there is nothing we can do now other than learn from his extremely obvious mistakes. Now, if you want to go and throw a tantrum in your room like a little protoform about the obvious, go ahead, but for the love of Primus, don't go crying at others and blaming them for dumb crap!"

Chromedome then let go of Orion, causing him to fall to his knees, retract his faceplate, and massage his throat, coughing up phlegm and a drop of energon.

"Now, if you'll excuse me", said Chromedome as he turned around and walked away, "I need to see Ratchet and Hotwire about my faceplate."

"That wasn't necessary, Domey", said Rewind with worry in his voice.

"Yes it was, Rewind. There was no other way to get it into his drunken head."

Chromedome then transformed and drove off, with Rewind transforming into his Cassette form, and riding on the top of Chromedome's car form. Meanwhile, Orion had gotten up, brushed himself off, wiped the energon off his face, and looked to the side of him, "Hey Bee, can you believe that-"

He stopped himself when he saw that both Bumblebee and Swerve were gone, and felt both embarrassment and shame at himself, for allowing his emotions to get the better of him. He decided to go to the local hospital first, seeing as he did just cough up a bit of blood, and then find Chromedome and apologise to him for his outburst. If anyone at the hospital asked how he got hurt, he'll just say that he almost got mugged by some bot in a cloak, but he was able to fight them off. I mean, it's not like the police force are actually going to investigate, since those kind of things are relatively common on Cybertron, so it'll be fine.

* * *

 **Rebirth  
The remnants of the city Fortress  
Underground Exiled Headquarters**

Hydrocruiser stared at his holo-computer blankly, hoping for a response. He had yet to await a signal from his assigned agent, Spinster, and he was still in the dark. The last transmission that he received from Spinster was at least a few hours ago, saying that he and his partners Hairsplitter and singe had retrieved incriminating evidence against Sentinel Prime, that would prove effective in their propaganda war in the outer Colonies, but he had been made, and was under heavy fire from several Vehicon Black Ops units. Before Hydrocruiser could learn the exact location of Spinster, and sent local Exiled spies to assist him, the transmission was hacked, and he had to cut it off before the Vehicons could learn the location of the Exiled's headquarters.

Hydrocruiser was worried. Spinster had said that he would send him a signal once he and his partners were in the clear, and that was 4 hours ago. He had hoped that it was sooner, but just over an hour ago, Spinsters spark transponder signal cut out, along with the signals from his partners. Now, that could mean one of two things. Either one, they've been captured, or two...

They're dead.

Hydrocruiser didn't know which one to hope for. On one hand, he hoped that they weren't dead, as he had known them for quite a while, and they had become good friends, so it would suck if he lost his friends. On the other hand, those who go into Sentinel's prisons, tend to not come out...

Hydrocruiser continued to stare at his holo-computer, praying for a message. Praying for the annoying as hell paperclip with eyes thing to pop up and say 'You've got mail', so he could then groan in frustration at the paperclip thingy, then open up his emails to see a message from Spinster, saying that all is well, and everything is hunky-dory.

Any second now...

Any second now...

Any second now...

Any damn second now...

"Drench."

Hydrocruiser looked behind him to see his C.O standing behind him.

He was a bulky Cybertronian, with a faceplate and red visor covering his face, two upwards fins on the side of his head, and the Exiled logo sitting on a crest on his head. He wore kibble on his back, being two tank treads sat on his back, as well as a tank turret, indicating his alt-mode. On the back of his legs, sat another pair of tank treads, and on his shoulders, there were a pair of small turrets, glowing purple with energy. On his left arm, sat the hilt of a powered down energy blade, and on his right, sat a large arm cannon, brimming with purple energy. His hands held sharp fingers, and his knuckles wore built in knuckle dusters, glowing with purple lights. The entirety of his body was painted in grey and red, and purple lights shone on his joints, servos, and across his entire body.

"Groundpound", began Hydrocruiser, "It's Hydrocruiser."

"...Huh?"

"My name is Hydrocruiser, now."

"What? What happened to Drench? Drench was a good name. Not as good as 'Groundpound', obviously, but still."

"Yeah, it was. But it turns out that some other bugger has that name, and you know what basic Cybertronian social standards are like?"

"'No Cybertronian can have the exact same name as another.' Yeah, I know. But still, 'Hydrocruiser'? Really?"

"Oh, and what would you have picked?"

"What about 'Tempest'? That's a good name."

"One of my first choices, but, you know the saying, 'All the best names are taken'."

"Oh, for god's sake- wait, I'm getting off topic. Soundwave wants to know if you've received any word from Spinster."

"Not since 4 hours ago. I've lost his transponder signal, and I can't get any trace on him, or his partners. Groundpound, I think they're... I think they're dead."

" _Sigh_. We can only hope that that isn't the case, Dren... Hydrocruiser. In the meantime, I need you to help SoundBlaster set up a proper connection between Thundercracker, Scrapper, Jolt and Aquablast."

Alpha Team? I thought they already had their own comms channel?"

"Not anymore. Boss upstairs wants Alpha Team to be in a constant loop with the EHC, in case they need backup. There is a shadow war to be fought, and we need to be in contact with our agents at all times. I gotta talk to Murena and Hydradread. We got another salvage of Marauder tank drones to sort out, and I don't know where to put them. We've got more drones than we know what to do with."

"We'll have our chance soon, Groundpound. Our chance at a revolution. We just need to be patient."

"Sure thing. Oh, and Hydrocruiser?"

"Hm?"

"If you do get word from Spinster, let the boss know. If he's carrying something important, he'll need to know."

"Got it, sir."

Groundpound then turned around, and walked out of the small room, accidently banging his back turret kibble against the frame of the small sliding door, before bending over to fit through the door, and then closing the door behind him.

'We really need to get bigger doors', thought Hydrocruiser, as he routed his computer to a personal holopad, turned off his computer, and got up from his seat to help SoundBlaster. Hydrocruiser wondered why SoundBlaster couldn't just do this on his own. He had a knack for electronics, so he didn't really know what he could help him with. Then again, maybe Groundpound thought that he needed something to take his mind off of Spinster.

Hydrocruiser sighed to himself. Groundpound's spark was in the right place, but he didn't really know what was best for others. He may think he knows, but he really didn't.

Hydrocruiser sat back down, and turned his computer back on. All he needed to do was wait. For what he was waiting for, he didn't know. He just had to be patient, and then, he'll be rewarded...

* * *

 **Cybertron  
Iacon  
Border Regions  
Promontory apartment block  
**

 _Some time later..._

"I think I went to far during that argument with Chromedome", said Orion to his laptop.

 _"You think?"_ said Megatron over face time, _"You did start screaming at him and throwing a tantrum."_

"I did not."

 _"Did so."_

"Did not."

 _"Did so. (At least, that's what I think when I heard it from you)."_

" _Sigh_. Okay, maybe I did. But just a little bit."

 _"Now, was that so hard to admit?"_

"Yes. It physically and mentally caused me pain to say that."

 _"You really need to let go of your pride, Pax. It'll be the death of you."_

"Yeah, sure. Back on subject though, I was in the wrong for accusing Chromedome of something he's not, but he's also in the wrong for punching me in the freaking face!"

 _"Again, you were throwing a tantrum at him."_

"Sod off, Megs."

 _"Hey, you called me, 'Optimus'. I can hang up whenever I like."_

"True."

 _"The thing I should be asking is, are you really alright? I mean, me and Moonracer just saw the news report about what happened at the White Flame, and you said earlier that you were going there, so I was worried that you were... you know..."_

"I'm fine, Megatron. Really. I wasn't shot or anything, and the whole being punched in the face thing, I can live with."

 _"Well, are you completely sure?"_

"Yes, Megs, I'm-"

" _Not physically. Mentally."_

"I'm fine. Just a little shaken up."

 _"You sure, because I can book you an appointment with Rung. He is the best therapist in Iacon."_

"Megatron, I appreciate the concern, but I'm okay. I just need to recharge for a bit, then I'll be fine."

 _"Well, if you say so. I can't really force you to do anything you don't want to do. Anyway, I need to help Moonracer put Snowglobe to bed, so I'll talk to you later."_

"You too, Megs. See you later."

 _"Right, bye."_

"Bye."

Orion turned off face time, and sat back on his desk chair. His room in the apartment was a small room with a large window in the wall, with black curtains, and a glass door which lead to a balcony, overseeing the entire city of Iacon. The walls were a dark blue colour, and the ceiling was a light shade of aqua blue, with a single yellow light in the middle of a ceiling. In the room, there was a used towel (Bumblebee and Swerve had forced him to get a shower in order to get rid of the smell that he had acquired after falling in the murky water and rubbish) lying on the floor, as well as an out of date newspaper. Next to the far wall to the balcony window, there was a recharge slab, and next to that, there was a small work desk with a few draws in it, and Orion's laptop on the top of it, as well as a swivel chair, and a work lamp.

Orion got out of his chair, and walked over to the balcony window. Opening the glass door, he was greeted to the outside of the apartment by a gentle gust of wind, and walked over to the edge of the balcony, where he could see the whole of the once great city of Iacon.

In the middle of the city, he could see the Great Dome, home and shelter to the Celestial Spires, the home to the rich and elite of Iacon. It was the only properly functioning building in the entire city, as the elitists that lived there had it constantly cleaned by service drones, and unfortunate bots who were not getting paid nearly enough than what it was worth (Bumblebee and Swerve had the unfortunate job of working there, and they had described it as 'being treated like you weren't even Cybertronian'). Those who lived there were in a constant state of comfort, and they constantly had their own private force of drones, called Overcharge Terrorbots. The one in charge of this little community of elitist snobs was one Assemblybot Ratbat, who served in the old Senate before Nominus took over, and was paid off to sell out his home of Eukaris, and, while the size of a cassettebot, held a massive amount of power, and served in Sentinel's Cybertronian Assembly, the leading body of Cybertron, which everyone knew was as morally bankrupt as Sentinel himself.

The rest of the city was not as lucky. Iacon, and in extension, the entire planet, was never officially repaired by the Government since the Grand Uprising, and that was 2 million years ago. Much of the planet is in disarray, and the civilian infrastructure is only just staring to repair itself, thanks to the good apples in the CCP, even if it is under the nose of Sentinel and his cronies.

The Border Regions of Iacon had become the main slum location, and was a complete shanty town. Old ships, shacks, and slums occupied the entire area, and some had even set up their own businesses in the slums (The White Flame being one of them), with the Forum of Enlightenment becoming a large 24/7 marketplace. However, the slums were the place most heavy with crime. Vehicon patrols were the highest in the Border Regions, and it wasn't uncommon to find a body in a skip somewhere in the area (Chromedome once told him that he found the body of some fembot Cyberdroid named Parsec in a skip once, and she must've been in there for about 2 days before someone noticed and called the CCP). Any towers that were in the Border Regions were once golden and glistening, but now they were rusted, broken, and hazard ridden, yet it had somehow become the home of many Cybertronians, who had no where else to go. The entirety of the Border Regions had been renamed as 'Sentinel's Folly', and was widely regarded as the biggest shanty city on the planet, so much so that other slums had started to name themselves 'Sentinel's Folly', and now it had become a widely used term to call slums across Cybertron.

Other parts of Iacon was also suffering. The Imperial Amphitheatre, once a place where musicians could gather before thousands, and show them their musical prowess, had been bombed out during the Grand Uprising, and was now being used by the CCP as a base of operations, though it looked more like a makeshift temporary base rather than something permanent. The Matrix Flame, a once sacred place not only in Iacon, but Cybertron, was completely destroyed, and it's priest was long gone, killed by the Tox-En bombardments during the last war. The planetary engines that once kept Iacon floating in the air supposedly during the Golden Age had been unused for millions of years until the Grand Uprising, where they were used as bunkers by Nominus's forces, then bombed out by the New Autobots. The Energon Pools that once flowed with the sweetest of fuels, was now dried up and empty (A few pools of energon still remained, but they were bitter and poisonous). The east end of Iacon was completely flattened, thanks to the bombardments from the New Autobots, and the Oracle Tank was eviscerated (It was once rumoured that the Oracle Tank could speak to a supposed AI called Vector Sigma, but those rumours eventually died out when the Oracle Tank was refurbished into a swimming pool before the Grand Uprising).

Orion was only 500000 years old, so he wasn't around to see what really happened during the Grand Uprising, but, if what happened during the last war that lead not only Cybertron, but the entire Cybertronian Empire to what it is today, then he was glad to not be around during the civil war. He had only heard vague details about what happened during the war from idle chatter, people complaining about the living conditions, and whatever records of it he could find at the Archive Centre. Though the Grand Uprising and the rule of Nominus Prime was well documented, what happened before that, during the Golden Age, the First Cybertronian Civil War, and the Unicron Wars, was a lot less well documented, as since the Unicron Wars and the First Cybertronian Civil War happened 20 million years ago, so those were lost to time, and though the Golden Age was only 7 million years ago, it seemed that Nominus Prime sought to rid all those files of the Golden Age, and replace it with his own narrative, making any genuine articles of the Golden Age more difficult to find, with some Cybertronians even questioning if the Golden Age was real, and not just some lie made up by delusional dreamers who wanted others to pay attention to them. Information Creep was also a thing, which didn't help the cases of those who preached that the golden age really happened.

Orion sighed to himself, and pondered. How could Megatron and Moonracer do it? How could they just get married, and recite the Scripture of the Binding Spark? How the hell would they even be able to bring up a child in this landscape in the first place? Cybertron was a ravaged world, and there wasn't really anywhere else to go beyond the colonies. So how would they even be able to raise a child in a safe and healthy way when they live in a place like this? (Granted, they live in Nyon, but still, pretty much every settlement on Cybertron is ravaged). Orion then thought back to his parents: His two dads were embarrassing as hell, and completely unable to shelter him from all the bad things in the world, but they still loved him, even till they died when he was just 12 years old. How they died, Orion never found out.

Maybe Orion should find someone to settle down with. Maybe he should find a guy or girl or... whatever, to get into a relationship with, but who? The only person Orion could think of was Elita One, as he had a bit of a crush on her, but the last time he heard from her, she was all the way on Carcer, under Queen Rage's rule (One of the few colony worlds to escape Sentinel's sight) and that was a few years ago. She and Orion had been friends for a while, but then real life happened, and they drifted apart.

Orion felt a soft sadness rush into his spark. Elita was a strong and confident girl, so he knows she could take care of herself. But it was not Elita's absence that saddened Orion. It was the fact that Orion did not know of anyone else to which he could share a meaningful relationship with. If Megatron and Moonracer could share a meaningful relationship with each other, and raise a child, then why couldn't Orion? Sure, he was only 500000 years old, but as the old saying goes, 'age doesn't equal maturity'.

Or was it 'maturity doesn't equal age'?

One or the other.

Whatev.

Orion was totally ready for a relationship. He had seen the dark side of Cybertron, so that was covered. The light side of it...? Well, he had seen the dark side of Cybertron, so that's covered. So he had experience in real life stuff. Emotional maturity? Well, um... no one needs to worry about what happened tonight, do they? Loving and caring? Again, no one needs to worry about what happened tonight, so... check, maybe?

Great! Now that Orion had gotten through all of the relationship checklist riffraff, he could mentally compile a list of potential candidates.

Chromedome- he's with Rewind.

Rewind- see above.

Lickety-Split- loves her Anime/Manga more than literally anything else (How did she even get all of that stuff anyway?).

Lightbright- seeing Sparkstalker.

Arcee- hate's him after that stunt with that bottle of engex and a space scooter.

Pyra Magma- He hates her. She hates him. Don't ask why, long story. And no, she's not his ex (Even if her sorority sister and Bumblebee are dating).

Bumblebee- no. Just no.

Swer- **OH GAWD WHY WOULD THAT EVEN CROSS HIS MIND KILLITWITHFIREAAAAUUUUUGGGHHHH-**

Okay, aside from the mental trauma, everything is dandy.

Any other candidates?

No?

Oh...

Maybe Orion was being selfish?

Actually, maybe he wasn't. Maybe he actually wanted a relationship. Maybe he was feeling empty on the inside without someone else in his life.

Maybe he was being overdramatic.

Maybe he was misinterpreting it all.

Maybe he really wasn't ready for love.

Maybe.

Probably.

Most likely.

But at this point, Orion no longer cared.

Orion turned away from his balcony and entered his room. Shutting the glass door behind him, he eyed his laptop, and walked over to his desk. Sitting on his swivel chair, he pondered to himself. Maybe he should try one of those dating sites that everyone is talking about. At least Wi-Fi is running in this place, thanks to their landlord, Ricochet, so that's good. He remembered that Swerve once sent him the link to some dating website called 'PlentyOfCyberfish', because he was 'lonely, apathetic, and not likeable one iota' (Great confidence boost, Swerve. Best mate ever, you snarky bastard), so maybe he should finally get around to setting up a profile, and finding any matches. Orion was never to fond of the idea of online dating, but he had never been in a romantic relationship before, and was eager to try it out.

Orion opened up his emails, and prepared himself to sift through the countless spam emails, when he saw that he had received a new message in his inbox, that was dated to have been sent to him at least 2 hours ago. No description. No recognised sender. No title. No actual message. Just two attachments with the titles, 'URGENT. WATCH AND READ IMMEDIATELY'.

Was it spam mail?

Definitely.

Did it contain a virus?

Probably.

Was Orion curious?

Wouldn't anyone be?

...

That was vague. It wasn't meant to be. Yes, he was curious. Of course he was curious. But he knew that it was most likely just a spambot or something. But then again, he could always just get Rewind or Corvex or someone at his work to fix his laptop if he got a virus. It's not like it didn't happen before (How was he suppose to know that his long lost relative, the Great Prince of Eukaris, who had been removed from his throne in a Coup and needed money, was actually a bunch of Neutronian scammers?), so it was easily fixable.

Welp, no time like the present.

Orion clicked play.

* * *

 **The Alpha Reserve**

 _The next day..._

Orion sat patiently on the bench, awaiting Chromedome's arrival. He sat on the bench in the middle of the Alpha Preserve, one of the last organic nature reserves on the planet, though it was now overgrown, where it was once neatly kept and tidy (At least, Orion presumed, as it had always been overgrown throughout all his life). Any plants that were once beautiful had most likely been eaten by the other predatory plants, who had begun feasting on each other for survival. A pack of Spiderbots had also taken residence in the Alpha Reserve, spinning a metal web in one corner of the domed sanctuary, and another species of Cybercreature, the small Cybertronian jellyfish, had taken up shop in the pond, occasionally being used as food for a local stray Cybercat, which the locals had nicknamed 'Steeljaw', for it's ability to tear into the toughest hides of Cybertronian jellyfish.

The entire Alpha Reserve had transformed into it's own ecosystem, becoming a new world when bots stepped inside, in contrast to the old one outside. Outside the domed building, Cybertron was a grey and bleak world, with hopelessness and sin, but once they stepped inside the building, they were greeted by a means to escape the dark world that they lived in, by way of a lush and vibrant forest of colourful plants and animals. Even if the Alpha Reserve was overgrown, and filled with rodents, it was still considered a means to get away from all of the bad things in the world. Even though no one ever tended to the garden, no one ever wanted to, as it would take away from it's naturalness, as it gave off a feel of wildness and colour, somethings that modern day Cybertron couldn't provide.

Orion wondered to himself about what this place was. How could an organic (Techno-Organic, technically) reserve even exist on Cybertron? From what Orion had read, Cybertron was always a metal world, but somehow, organic life was able to thrive on it, until it was all destroyed by Nominus to make the western hemisphere cities. And during the Grand Uprising, most of the few remaining nature reserves on Cybertron were destroyed in the fighting between the New Autobots and Nominus's forces. So how had the Alpha Reserve survived the 100 year war? Iacon wasn't near the frontlines, directly in the fighting, but it was at the edge of the war, so fighting did happen in the city occasionally, until the end of the war, when a remnant of the New Autobots made a last stand against overwhelming enemy forces, resulting in the 2 year long battle, 'The Siege of Iacon'. During the 2 year long battle, much of Iacon was battered, and is what the average Cybertronian saw to this day, so why was the Alpha Reserve one of the few things left largely intact? From what Orion had read in the archives, there was a reported New Autobot presence in this specific area, so how was this building able to survive so easily, when there was probable fighting nearby?

'Nature just has a way of surviving', Orion thought.

"You know", said Chromedome as he came into view beyond the overgrown plants, sporting a metal plaster over the cracked part of his face, with his faceplate retracted, and the cracks in his metal visor almost gone, showing only faint outlines as it slowly healed, "I've always wondered about this place."

"As have I", said Orion as he turned to look at Chromedome, "I mean, I've just had an internal monologue about it in my head, so I imagine that we might be on the same page, here."

"Orion, if this is about yesterday-"

"Don't say you're sorry. I was drunk, and went a tad bit too far, and for that, I am sorry (Though I did have a point in a few parts of that)."

"What makes you think I was sorry?"

"...For what?"

"Punching you in the face."

"Ah, I see. Right..."

Chromedome then sat down on the bench, sitting next to Orion, and looked at him, "But that's not why you asked me to deviate from my 'Ever-so-busy-jk-not-not-really-that-busy' job, is it?"

"No, it isn't."

"Well then, what is it? I can't stay here long, so please do make it quick."

"Yesterday, I got an email-"

"Oh come on, Orion. That's why you called me? If you've gotten a virus from that spamtron thing, you could've just called Rewind. Or Twincast. Or anyone else for that matter. (I'm compiling a list in my head filled with other people you could've called, right now.)."

"That's... not the problem."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"Now, you're sorry", muttered Orion, "Primus, make up your mind."

Orion then handed Chromedome a holopad, and Chromedome looked at it and pondered. "What's on this?"

"It was an attachment on the email. 1 of 2. The other one's on there as well."

"Alright, let's see what's on this thing then", Chromedome then examined the information on the holopad for a brief minute, deep in focus. His visor watched the first video on the screen, before moving onto the second clip, the audio from the video audible throughout the entire Alpha Reserve. Chromedone then looked at Orion in bewilderment, his voice silent, and his revealed lips unmoving, "..."

"..."

"This is a joke right?" Chromedome finally said.

"Hm?" Orion hummed in response.

"This is a joke. This is you, mister Orion Pax, attempting to dabble in humour, so you decide to make up something very mentally disturbing, and then say 'it's just a prank, bro', and suddenly Rewind pops out from the bushes with his camera and asks to put it on MeTube."

"Okay, 1, MeTube's been demonetized, so I'd probably put it on the Big Conversation, or something, and 2, you're one of my oldest friends. Why would I lie to you?"

"... Well, I can think of, um, well, I can think of a few reasons, but I see your point."

"Right then. So, what do we do with this?"

"You have to take the data drive that all that stuff is on from the holopad, and destroy it. Burn it. Smash it. Break it. I don't care how. Just... Just destroy it."

"W-what? But why?"

Chromedome then got up from the bench, put down the holopad on the bench, and looked at Orion, who was looking at him with a confused look on his face. Chromedome then said, "Orion, look around. Not only is Cybertron and her colonies ravaged, but the people are very pissed at their situation, and that's putting it lightly. Rebels and terrorists are rising up, and if they get their hands on that data drive, then very bad things will happen."

"Bad things? If the information on the data drive is released, then Sentinel and his followers will be forced to step down from all of the political pressure."

"No, he won't. Sentinel is a very bad man- I mean, obviously- and I doubt he's gonna give up power just because someone told him too. If that data drive gets into the wrong hands, then the information on there could be released to the public, and that'll be all they need to set off on a blood rage. They'll start to rise up, and that'll lead to innocent people dying for a stupid reason."

"Are you kidding me? The people wouldn't start killing each other."

"The people already want to hurt each other already. I mean, there's rioting on the streets in every major city across the planet every other day, for Primus' sake. They see that, then innocent people will die, and that's a very bad thing."

"But-"

"No. I know I sound like an arse, and I know you have the best intentions at heart, but if anyone with bad intentions somehow acquires the data drive, then we're looking at the very probable end of our civilisation, and no, I'm not being overdramatic."

"..."

"Orion, look at me. Destroy the data drive. Even if the information on there is fake (which it probably is), nobody will care. They'll just see it as an excuse to go all battle royale on everyone else they know and don't know. Trust me, even if Sentinel is a terrible leader, living a long life is usually better than dying in fire and agony."

Chromedome then turned around, and walked back to the abandoned entrance in and out of the Alpha Reserve, "Look, I've gotta head back now. See you later, Orion."

"...Right", said Orion, as he took the holopad from the bench, and stood up straight, not taking his eyes off of Chromedome, "See you later, Chromedome."

Chromedome then transformed into his car form, and drove off through the overgrown fauna, while Orion looked at the holopad, and the information on it. As much as he hated to admit it, Chromedome had a point. Innocent people will die if this gets out, and Orion couldn't bear that on his conscience. What was left of the Cybertronian civilisation was heavily fractured, disenfranchised, and angry, and any bonds that held them together would immediately be broken, and society could fall apart permanently, and never be healed. So, for a semblance of hope and order, the data drive had to be destroyed.

But did it? The people of Cybertron and her colonies were angry, yes, but they were angry at one thing: Sentinel Prime. If they rallied together, they could hold mass protests, and use political pressure to remove Sentinel from power through peaceful means, and, if that didn't work, more forceful means. Then, once Sentinel was removed, Cybertronian society could properly repair itself, and set up more peaceful relations with their neighbouring species, and heal it's age old wounds.

So, that just left the question:

Should he destroy the data drive?

Should he not destroy the data drive?

Should he destroy the data drive?

Should he not destroy the data drive?

Orion was deeply conflicted. Each argument that he presented to himself had their own good points, yet they also had flaws. On the one hand, innocent people won't die, and a semblance of order and security will remain, however, this will lead to inaction, and the Cybertronian species will continue to live under oppression and fear, and slowly drive itself to extinction. On the other hand, the Cybertronian race will be more united than it ever has been in a long time, and they could possibly even overthrow Sentinel, but this will lead to a massive sudden loss of life, and complete destruction of anything close to a system of government. There was no such thing as a bloodless revolution, and many people would lose their lives to Sentinel's army of drones before they took a single step.

Orion just looked at the holopad, then put it in a side compartment in his waist. He then began to walk through the overgrown fauna, and to the largely intact exit. He would just go back to the apartment, and ponder on the two options that he had. Order, or freedom. He had to choose between the two. It was a difficult choice, as each on brought both perks, and flaws. All he could do, at this point, was ponder on the right choice, and soon, the answer will come to him.

Unbeknownst to both Orion and Chromedome, they had been, and were still, being monitored. A S.H.R.I.E.K hover mini-drone had been observing them through the foliage of plants, after tailing Orion from since he left his apartment, and had been recording their entire conversation.

TRANSMITTING RECORDING... RECORDING TRANSMITTED. AWAITING FURTHER ORDERS.

* * *

 **Rodion  
The Metroplex  
Intelligence and Espionage chamber**

"DATA FROM S.H.R.I.E.K HOVER MINI-DRONE TF/1984 HAS BEEN RECIEVED", informed a Vehicon to a commander. The Vehicon was one of many lifeless Vehicons in a large chamber in the Metroplex complex in Rodion, and was part of a central monitoring system that covered large parts of both Cybertron, and the Colonies. This monitoring system was made possible by the drones and war machines of Sentinel's massive army, from the small S.H.R.I.E.K flyer drones, to the large APEX class tank drone, to the nimble WARBIRD fighter drone, to the Vehicons themselves, from the fighter pilots, to the regular infantry, to the police Vehicons, to the Titans, and to the Wall crawlers and Black Ops units. All of them were linked to the same hive mind network, the KURUMA network, governed by Sentinel Prime himself, and all controlled from a central brain, known as KURUMA, located in the Metroplex's lowest level underground.

The Metroplex was the most well defended fortress on the planet, with sentry turrets, warp cannons, watch towers, checkpoints, Vehicon patrols, and WARBIRD drones and Vehicon Starfighters always on alert, and even a Mothership hung in the sky over the fortress, keeping the city of Rodion under lock down. Rodion itself was the most well defended city on the planet, with curfews and lethal force used to keep the populace in check. A full frontal assault on not just the Metroplex complex , but the city as a whole, would be suicidal, and complete madness, unless you had a death wish. It would take either a lot of firepower, or a bot with years of patience, to take down the entire city in a successful fight.

"VERIFYING FOOTAGE", said the Vehicon to nobody in general, "VERIFYING... VERIFIED. CONFIRMED. FOOTAGE FROM S.H.R.I.E.K HOVER MINI-DRONE TF/1984 HAS BEEN CONFIRMED TO CONTAIN THE INDIVIDUAL KNOWN AS ORION PAX (NATURAL BORN IACONIAN). THE INDIVIDUAL KNOWN AS ORION PAX (NATURAL BORN IACONIAN) IS CONFIRMED TO BE CARRYING SENSITIVE INFORMATION OF LEADER SENTINEL PRIME (CLASSIFIED) AND HIS ACTIVITIES. CONFIRMED THAT THE INDIVIDUAL KNOWN AS ORION PAX (NATURAL BORN IACONIAN) HAS SHOWN THE INFORMATION TO THE INDIVIDUAL KNOWN AS CHROMEDOME (NATURAL BORN IACONIAN). THE INDIVIDUAL KNOWN AS CHROMEDOME (NATURAL BORN IACONIAN) IS CONFIRMED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CYBERTRONIAN CIVIL POLICE. THE INDIVIDUALS KNOWN AS ORION PAX (NATURAL BORN IACONIAN) AND CHROMEDOME (NATURAL BORN IACONIAN) ARE NOW THREATS TO THE SECURITY OF LEADER SENTINEL PRIME. TRANSMITTING INFORMATION TO LEADER SENTINEL PRIME."

* * *

 **Sentinel's chamber**

Like the rest of Cybertron, Sentinel's main chamber was dark and bleak. It was a simple, dull, grey coloured room, with four walls, one of which was a window, which oversaw the entire city of Rodion (the window was made of bullet proof and laser proof glass, and was also protected by a laser shield, so any long range attacks would be impossible), while another had a large shelf over a part of it. On the floor of the office, there was a black symbol for Sentinel's government, and on the ceiling, there was a single white light, that barely lit up the room. Near the window, stood Sentinel's desk, in a plain grey colour, with a plain swivel chair, several draws of items in it, and a lamp, a holopad, and a communications device perked on it. Sitting in the swivel chair was Sentinel Prime himself, looking out over the large city in front of the Metroplex.

Suddenly, his holopad let of a soft beep, and a message popped up on it's holographic screen. Sentinel then swung round on his chair, and picked up the holopad, observing the message on it with a deep concentration. After reading the message, he then reached over to his desk, and tapped a button on the communications device. Afew moments later, a holographic image of a Cyberdroid appeared.

"Infinitus?"

 _"Oh, um, yes sir?"_

"Get Mindset up here. Now."

 _"Oh, um y-yes sir. I'll have Tread Bolt bring him up now."_

"Good."

* * *

 _Some time later..._

"The message that I have received confirms what we have suspected: some nobody called Orion Pax has damaging information on me, and has been confirmed to have shown it to a member of the CCP, known as, um, Comb Dome or something or other", said Sentinel Prime to Mindset, who was standing in the middle of the room, while Sentinel was still sitting in his desk, facing Mindset, "This information is also confirmed to have been on Orion's documents on his devices before he transferred them to a data drive, and deleted the documents on his computer. This information is also confirmed to be the information that that spy had stolen before you killed him."

"So?" asked Mindset.

"So? You screwed up. You let a sensitive piece of information slip through your fingers, and now it could spread and compromise my entire government. That information is incredible damaging to me, and if the rabble gets their hands on it, then boom. My entire empire is done. And if it goes down, you're the first one getting hanged by the masses, not me."

"What's it matter, anyway? That info (whatever it is, since you've ain't exactly told me yet) is probably fake, and even if it's real, nobody's going to believe a lick of it, anyways."

"Oh, they'll believe it, alright, and even if they don't, they won't care. The pathetic excuses for citizens that impede my empire's progress, will have something to rally behind, and the only thing that will stay loyal to me will be the CCP -out of sheer loyalty to the safety of the masses- and my drones. The people will riot, and they will bring down my empire. And with a revolution, comes hope, and that is something that the idiotic excuses for masses cannot be allowed to have."

"So, what do you want me to do?"

Sentinel then got up from his seat, and marched up to Mindset, before stopping right in front of him, and looking down at him, with cold blue optics, "You want to know how to get yourself unslagged? Fine. What I want you to do, is to march to Iacon, destroy the data drive, and kill all of those who have seen that information. Orion, Comb... whatever, and anyone else. Make them disappear of the face of the damn planet! I don't care how you do it! Just. Make. It. Happen!"

"Heh, if it means I gets ta kill somethin' boss", said Mindset with a smug, "I'm all ups for it."

"I'm dealing with a goddamn thug...", muttered Sentinel.

"Eh?"

"Shut up and get out. I want this done by 2 days tops. If not, then you can say hello to Unicron for me."

"Where's that?"

"In the pit, you idiot!"

"Oh."

"Just go", said Sentinel in frustration.

"Right boss", said Mindset as he left, and walked through the door, leaving Sentinel just standing there, exasperated with his sadistic street thug for a S.I.C.

"He's good with a gun. He's good with a gun. He's good with a gun. He's good with a gun", continuously muttered Sentinel in an effort to remind himself why he kept that moron around.

Mindset then poked his head through the door, with a curious look on his face, "Er, boss? I's got a question?"

"What?"

"What's actually on that data drive, anyways? I mean, I knows it's damaging and all, but what's specifically-"

"None of your concern."

"Um, right."

Mindset then left, and Sentinel just rubbed his forehead. He swore he was getting a headache from all this pitiful nonsense.

But, to the obliviousness of Sentinel, there was someone observing him. On his holopad, underneath a number of hidden firewalls, a virus was inserting itself into his KURUMA network, and the holopad had been remotely accessed by a familiar organisation, and was listening in on his conversation with Mindset...

* * *

 **Rebirth  
The remnants of the city Fortress  
Underground Exiled Headquarters  
Main EHC chamber**

"Well well well", said Colossus in the centre of the large chamber, as he stood before a large hologram of the Cybertronian Empire, whilst listening in on Sentinel's conversation over an outdated holopad, "Thanks to the information that we got from the Jet Corps when Black Omen saved their asses, the KURUMA's firewalls are now down, and our NOA virus is now infecting their entire drone network."

"It only would've taken another 200 years to decrypt them", muttered Stalker in a sulk, as he, Groundpound, Soundwave and SoundBlaster stood in front of the leader of the Exiled.

"Of course it would have, Stalker, and the effort that you have put in will be rewarded", said Colossus in a pleasant tone, "But, any help that we can get to win our fight is a welcome gift."

"Heh, well, when you put it like that...", said Stalker in a much more upbeat tone.

"Well", began Soundwave, "With the NOA virus now in the system, we can finally peak into their internal operations, and better fight against the enemy. Our guerrilla efforts will ease up with all the information we will-"

"No."

"What?"

"We've been waiting for an opportunity like this for years", sternly, and confidently said Colossus, as he looked to his Cyberdroid partners Clench, Spark Barrel and Leader-1, "We have access to their drone network for at least 2 days. We have our own expendable division of drone units. We have a whole battalion of fully capable warriors, a black ops team, ships, tanks, spies, and weapons. Not only that, but if what Sentinel said to his lackey is to be believed, then the information that Spinster informed us he had is now sitting in Iacon, the least defended city on Cybertron. If we grab that information, then we can finally legitimise ourselves, and wage a true war of liberation against Sentinel's tyranny."

"Wait a moment", hesitantly began SoundBlaster, "What are you proposing?"

"We charge on Iacon, take control of the KURUMA network, and turn it on not just the CCP, but on everyone. We then grab the information, release it to the public, and finally rally the people behind us."

"But, Colossus", began Groundpound, "Aren't we fighting for the people? I mean, if we do this, then innocent people will die. I'm all up for fighting for the cause, I mean, don't get me wrong, but-"

"I don't like it anymore than you, Groundpound, but the people aren't immediately going to rally behind a simple bit of information. I'm afraid that in order to gain support of the people, we need to make some sacrifices."

"Well, um..."

"We talking about the greater good of the Cybertronian species as a whole, Groundpound. If the choice between a few civilians, and our entire species, then we have no choice."

"Well, I guess you're right... I mean I guess."

"So", began Soundwave, "What do we need to do?"

"Call up Zarak, Dante and Caliburn. Tell them to get the Novaroids and Galamen ready", ordered Colossus, "Soundwave, Stalker, tell Blood and Bomb-Burst to get our Marines in top combat readiness. We have 2 days to make this work. We march in with everything we've got, we take the data, and take Iacon as well."

"Indeed", commented Stalker, "Off to battle then."

"Oh, this is much more than a battle, Stalker", said Colossus, as his green optics glowed with determination and a fiery confidence.

The others caught up on this, and they also grew a fiery determination to win, coupled with a growing want to win their seemingly desperate battle to survive. All of the others in the large room had also caught up with the growing buzz, and were scurrying around the room, finally finding a hidden hope, and confidence in the fact that the time to fight had finally arrived.

"We're going to war."

* * *

 **If y'all could leave a review for my stories, that be great. I have 2 other stories running at the moment, and I'd very much appreciate it if you could read those and share your thoughts on them.**

 **OCs: Aequmm Prime, Anima Bellator Maximus, Snowglobe, Groundpound.**

 **All other characters that have introduced or mentioned have already existed, either as their own characters, or with different names that also already existed, or as one character who had 2 different names, who are in this continuity their own separate person (Leader-1, the Unicron trilogy Minicon, for example, had the alternative name of Spark Barrel, but here, Leader-1 and Spark Barrel are 2 separate people, and are both Cyberdroids).**


	5. A new beginning: The burning

**Just to let you know, I've changed Clench's name to Colossus, so that I could use the cyberdroid Clench, and I also changed Rage's already existing alt name of Aquanaught to his other already existing alt name of Murena (They're real. Look 'em up on TFWiki). Hope that's cool.**

* * *

 **Cybertron**  
 **Iacon  
** **City Centre area  
** **CCP headquarters Autobase Prima (Imperial Amphitheatre)  
3 days after the White Flame shooting**

"Zis is an outrage!" cried Zoom Out, as Getaway dragged him into a cell, and activated the ray field, creating a blue field of light across the door. Zoom out's monocle had fallen off, and his red optics beamed with rage, "I have done noo-ting vrong! I demand vy litigator!"

Getaway looked behind him, and he saw that Goshooter and Cab were hauling the other criminals to their cells as well, with one of them, Beserker, struggling and thrashing about in rage, frothing slime, spittle, and phlegm from his mouth like an animal (Pray for the poor sod that has to clean that stuff up), while the other, Mohawk, was complaining and making death threats to the other CCP officers there.

"Hey yo, blue mofo who dragging me around, I'mma kill you first, then I'mma kill ya'll fellas over there next, then ya'll over there, and then maybe I'll spare Ya over there, pretty lady. Hey yo, call me up later, yeah?"

"I have a girlfriend", said the femme bot, who Getaway knew as Acceleron.

"Yo, where she at, though! Where she at!"

"Could you please just shut up already!" yelled Chopter from his cell, "Primus, you're annoying."

"Didn't you hear me?" yelled Zoom Out from his cell at Getaway, "I said, I vant vy litigator, and to be see by ze Assembly!"

"Sir, you had organised a death pit, and were making poor bots you kidnapped fight to the death. I don't think even a lawyer is gonna help you there", responded Getaway. Besides, he doubted that the Cyertronian Assembly- the supposedly leading political body of Cybertron- would even bother with the likes of this guy, much less a criminal at all.

"Vat? Zat is ridiculous! I have done noo-ting of ze sort!"

"We caught you and your buddies, Beserker and Mohawk over there prodding two bots with energy staffs until they, quote, "did battle, tore each other apart, and feast on their remains", unquote. Beserker's words, not mine (Your 2 captives are fine, by the way). My buddies Overshoot and Stiletto over there as well found records of you and you buddies also kidnapping bots like Sea Panic, Reckage, Bighorn, Hyperion, Bulge, Cannon, Kindle, Wrecklose, Cohrada, and Roller Force, and several other stretching back to the last 2 years, in several cities around the world. Clever, but not clever enough. So far, we've found the remains of Wrecklose, Bulge, Reckage, Wreakage (2 guys with very similar names, yesh), Heave, Fervor, Polaris, and Radar, so you'd better pray to whatever god you worship that the rest of them turn up safe and sound, you Unicron loving piece of slag."

Getaway walked away from the cell, ignoring Zoom Out's whines, and down the hallway, passing bots like the Minibot Lug, the Macromaster Siren, and the Cyberdroid Loudmouth dragging a green and grey Macromaster by the name of Charger to a cell, and the Cyberdroids Crashbash and Overboard under armed guard while they were in separate cells, with the Micromaster Half-Track and the Cyberdroid Tracer watching over them. Getaway also saw Fever Dream being dragged by Ranger and Waverider to the lower levels, to be hardwired into the wall, and left to gather dust, and conserve energy until his sentence was over, or maybe temporarily lobotomise him and turn him into a transport for the smaller bots.

Getaway wasn't a big fan of hard wiring prisoners into the wall, and leaving them to themselves over the years in darkness, alone, until their time was done, or turn them into glorified shuttlecrafts, but this was reserved for their long term prisoners, and it helped to conserve energy, so in reality, it was the lesser of two evils. Getaway had heard rumours that plans were being made by certain groups of individuals in the Assembly to hardwire all of the Macromasters in Cybertronian territory into the buildings, or turn them into lifeless vehicles, allowing them to conserve energy, and letting the Micromasters, Cassetebots, Minibots and Cyberdroids, the much more fuel efficient Cybertronians, run around, and gather up energy for them, until the approaching energy crisis was over. The Cybertronian civilisation was on the verge of the biggest energon crisis in known history, and the current civil unrest and terrorist issues wasn't going to help. People had been known to do whatever it takes to survive, and starving to death wasn't a good way to go out, so it really didn't need much to imagine what could happen.

Getaway had seen many bots just fall over and die from energon starvation over the years, so he didn't like the prospect of an energon shortage. On the other hand, he also didn't like the prospect of being hardwired the wall either, or turned into a lifeless car, so it was really a no win situation for anyone.

He sighed to himself, as he passed the Cyberdroids Spratt and Mussle dragging a Black, orange, and blue Micromaster with a helicopter alt-mode named Pantera away, and saw Haywire and Hyperfire discussing the Mayhem gang, (Known members included Ruckus, Grabuge, Needlenose, Sunbeam, Zigzag, Octopunch, Stranglehold, WindSweeper, Snarler, Leobreaker, Carnivac, Chop Shop, Venom, Roadblock, Battletrap, Skytread, Overbite, and Flywheels. There was a rumour that 2 bots named Thunderwing and Bludgeon leads them, but that's just speculation).

He should head over to a bar later, and drink his worries away. Maybe the Way of All Things, run by Rarigo (Though the engex that she sold there was hardly any good), or maybe the Proton Blaster, run by Dipole. Certainly not the White Flame, thanks to what happened a few days ago. The bar had now been shut down, thanks to the killing of that six changer, whatever his name was. Shame, that place was his favourite bar. In all honesty, he hardly knew the guys who ran the place, so he found it hard to feel sympathy for them, other than the fact that they'll probably be living on the streets now.

Guess that makes him an Arsehole now, doesn't it?

Getaway walked through a security gate that had been hastily constructed into the hallway, managed by a grey and blue Micromaster named Swindler. Waving at him, and giving him a pleasant "Hi", he continued on, and eventually made his way into the main office of the CCP headquarters. The headquarters of the CCP was built around the old ruins of the Imperial Amphitheatre, so the old stage of the massive building was reconverted into the main office, with a building frame placed around it to shield it from the weather. The roof and walls were grey and dull (with the CCP logo sprayed onto the walls), which were a stark contrast to the floor, which were a stark contrast to the dulled gold colour of the floor. Several desks were scattered around the room, and many wires were spread across the floor, held down by sticky tape and glue (this didn't help people stop tripping over them occasionally, though).

As he walked through the office, he saw Prowl talking to Phoenix, the Cyberdroids Rodney and Lione discussing Gestalt technology with Teslor, Buckshot and Flat-Out dragging away a Cyberdroid by the name of Throttler, and a Macromaster named Sledge, the latter having illegally transferred his spark from a Constructibot Micromaster Body to a Macromaster form, Highbrow being snobbish to Quig and Minerva (again, for Primus's sake), Push-Button and Peacemaker arguing about the origin of Functionism and shape-hate crimes, and Pointech trying to strike up a conversation with Pinpointer and Crosshairs, who were themselves too busy managing their own tasks to listen.

Getaway then spotted his target, and walked towards a desk in the middle of the room, where the Macromaster sized Micromaster Gestalt, Wind-Charger sat. The combined form of X-Throttle, Axle, and Screw was taping away at his computer, writing up reports, prisoner files, saving accounts, budget reports, and what not.

Interestingly, Getaway mused to himself, was that ever since the City Stealth Team combined together, they've never actually separated. Highbrow would call it a full mind combination (If you could get past his generally snobbish and fragging annoying attitude, mind you). He theorised that their minds became so well linked, that the combined form eventually became it's own person, being Wind-Charger. The idea of a Micromaster combiner hadn't been heard of ever, or Getaway mused, since the fabled 'Micro Extinction' (It was an old story about Nominus Prime ordering the deaths of all Micromasters being born from something called a Hot-spot, because he viewed them as sinful, and ungodly. You know, an old, probably fake, fable used to keep the Protoforms in line. It told of Micromaster combiners called Sixliner, Sixbuilder, Sixwing, and others with the number 6 at the start of their name, defending their world of Micro, and it's citizens from Nominus's hordes, before pulling a Babu Yar army ending, and charging their foes, before dying needlessly, and their homes being destroyed. It was a stupidly dark story, and one that, Getaway mused, most like wasn't even true).

"So", Getaway said as he approached Wind-Charger's desk, "How are things with-"

"Gimme your report on the death games case", said Wind-Charger, his thick Devisen accent making it hard for people to understand him unless they speak to him quite a bit, and learn how to get past his accent.

"Yeesh, Wind-Charger, I'm just trying to be polite", replied Getaway, with mock offence, and a bit of a guffaw. He had become aware of Wind-Charger's cynicism quite awhile ago, and had gotten used to it.

"Yes, and it was annoying", said Wind-Charger in response, "Besides, I have more important things to worry about. I need to sort and upload all of these files into the right folders before the end of the day, otherwise Prowl will stomp up here tomorrow, and start whinging to me about time constraints, or whatever it is he usually moans about. I don't know."

"Yeah, I usually block it out."

"I seriously want to know how you do that."

Getaway then pulled out a chip from his side pocket, and gave it to the Micromaster Gestalt, "Here. My contribution to the 'end the death-by-talking campaign'."

"Oh, thank fragging Primus. Now all I need is a few hundred more field reports, a preliminary report on that six changer who died the night before, and the information gathered on him by Chromedome, and I'm hunky dory."

"Chromedome? Wasn't he at the White Flame when that six changer was shot up?"

"Yep, but he headed off to the Archive Centre with Manta Ray, Slapdash, and Road Rocket. Seemed pretty insistent about going there, as well."

"Well, his husband does work at the Archive Centre, so he probably just wants to see him."

"Yeah, probably."

* * *

 **Border regions  
** **Iacon Archive Centre**

Orion tapped away at his computer, more so now than any other day. Working was the best way to put aside his nerves. It's worked before, it will now.

He looked to the side of his office, out of the door, and saw Wallbreaker and Killswitch (Or Hexadeath- thingamajig or something) walking past, discussing tax files, or whatever. He then saw Rewind walk through the door, holding a datapad, "Hey Orion, Chromedome and a few of his fellow officers are here."

"Oh", said Orion rather nervously, "Well then..."

Chromedome then walked into the office, followed by 3 other macromasters. 2 of the mechs were blue and yellow in colour, but one looked to have a car alt mode, and a red visor, while the other had what looked like a submarine alt mode, and had a purple visor. The last unknown mech had a large wheel on both of his arms, indicating that he had a motor byke alt mode, and was red, black, and blue in colour, had a yellow strip of metal on his chest, and had a glowing blue visor. One of the few things that they all shared, was that they all wore the CCP logo, which was a red face like symbol.

"Hey, 'Optimus'", said Chromedome, "These are my colleagues, Slapdash-"

"Yo", said the blue and yellow car bot.

"-Manta Ray-"

"Hi", said the blue and yellow submarine bot.

"-And Road Rocket (Not to be confused with the other guy who works with Powerflash. That guy has a hyphen in his name)."

"What up", said the red, black and blue byke bot.

"Um, I haven't done anything illegal, have I?" asked Orion nervously, "Because I'm meeting Bumblebee and Dust Up later during my lunch brake for some Cyberfly fishing, and I'd hate to miss it."

"Nope", replied Slapdash, "Unless you have. In which case, into the slammer you'll go."

"We're not here with a warrant, Mr. Pax", said Manta Ray, "We've heard that you sort out all of the files and details and such on individuals, and we'd like you to pull up anything you have on a bot called Sixshot. He's the six changer who died in the White Flame the night before last. We'd grab the files on him ourselves, but our systems are pretty shoddy thanks to budget cuts, and the general state of our base itself doesn't necessarily help."

"Wait, 'Sixshot'?" began Rewind, "The same guy who said that he was one of the first Autobots?"

"Oh yeah, I read your statement", remarked Road Rocket, "Yeah, Prowl and Nightbeat want to try and conduct an "investigation" (With added quotation marks) into the obvious circumstances of how the drunk guy died. So it should be expected to contain cynicism, snarky remarks, sarcasm so pragmatic it hurts, dry humour, nothing actually being accomplished since we know everything already, and Prowl's death glare."

Manta Ray shuddered at the last part.

"And by the end of all that, I think I might've killed myself at that point", finished off Road Rocket.

"You don't hold these 'Prowl' and 'Nightbeat' guys in much high regard, don't you?" asked Rewind.

"Oh no, I'm cool with Nightbeat. I just really don't like Prowl."

"For some reason, you've already made a good impression on me."

"Feels good."

Whilst they were talking, Chromedome walked up to Orion's desk, and whispered to him, "Did you destroy the Data Drive like I said?"

"Yes", whispered Orion, "I tossed it in the fireplace back at my apartment."

"Are you sure Bumblebee and Swerve didn't notice you."

"No, they were out last night at Luggie's. Bumblebee was on a date with his girlfriend, and Swerve was playing third wheel."

* * *

 **City edge** _  
_ **Luggie's**

 _"So, how do you and Bumblebee make out with that mask of yours", asked Swerve to Dust Up._

 _Dust Up looked at Bumblebee on the opposite end of the table, "Bee-Bee-"_

 _"If we ignore him, he might go away", responded Bumblebee._

 _"So", began Swerve with a stupidly wide grin, "Do you guys, like, Archon kiss when you make out, or-"_

 _A punch to the face by both parties was his answer._

* * *

"Hey, do you guys smell something?" asked Rewind, his nose behind his faceplate twitching, "I don't recognise it."

"I do", said Slapdash, "It smells like fuel grade Nucleon."

"As in?"

"As in the stuff that powers starshi-"

A white and orange burning light was the last thing that Orion saw before he blacked out.

* * *

 **On the streets of Iacon**  
 **Not too far from the Archive Centre**

 _A few minutes earlier..._

"It'll be nice to meet the rest of your friends, Bee-Bee", said Dust Up, as she and Bumblebee drove down the streets of the Iacon Border Regions, dodging bots walking through the streets, and derelict old debris sitting in the middle of the road. They were cast in darkness, as several Vehicon warships moved over Iacon. Strange.

"Thanks babe", said Bumblebee, "Though I am hoping that they don't act like idiots, A.K.A themselves. They have a habit of doing that. I still remember that time I brought Arcee around."

* * *

 _"Hey guys, meet Ar... cee", bumblebee hesitantly said as he and Arcee walked through the apartment door. For some reason, Tailgate and Nightracer were doing the conga, Swerve was rolling around on the floor drunk, Rewind and Chromedome were hanky panky, a bunch of Chromedome's cop friends, Pointech, Pinpointer, Crosshairs, Peacemaker, Pointblank, Highbrow, Ironfist, and Brainstorm, were lounging on the couch binge drinking engex and laughing at corny jokes that they found on the internet, and Orion was riding around the room on a space scooter with a bottle of engex balancing on his head, "Um, is this the-"_

 _"AAAGGHH!" called out Orion as he lost control of the scooter, smashed into a table, and starting flying towards Bumblebee and Arcee, "LOOK OUT!"_

 _""AAARRRGGGHH-""_

* * *

"No matter how many times I try to apologise to her, she just shouted "Dishonour on you! Dishonour on your family! Dishonour on your Cyber-Cow!". I think she even made somebody make a note of it, every time she screamed it", muttered Bumblebee, as he and Dust Up continued to drive to the Archive Centre

"You don't hold your friends in in high regard, do you?" asked Dust Up.

"Oh, it's not that, Dust Up. It's just that, well, you're technically the first girlfriend I've ever had, and I'm just nervous that the others will embarrass me in front of you, and then you'll think that me and my friends are immature, and then you'll-"

"1: don't do a 'Bluestreak, man. You're doing a 'Bluestreak'. 2: it's "My friends and I". You have a habit of using incorrect grammar, and I've only just noticed."

"Right. Yeah. Sorry", said Bumblebee, as they reached the Archive Centre. The two bots transformed out of their speedster modes, and began to walked up the steps to the Archive Centre, both of them carrying Cyberfly fishing rods, and bait, "I just don't want the guys to act like Swerve did on our date last night."

"You know, I didn't really like him that much", said Dust Up, "But after a while, he's really grown on me, and he's kinda funny-"

"And now he's on my list of things I want to die. Twice (I've got his name down twice, as of this moment)."

"- The point is, that you just need to give your friends a shot. Underneath the exterior that you have seen of them, I'm sure that they're all amazing people."

"And this is why I both love and hate you. And I mean that in the most nicest way possible."

I'm sure you do."

As they walked up the steps, the 2 of them got a good look at the Archive Centre. It was a large domed building, with a equality large antenna sticking out of the top of it, and several columns sticking up around the long edge of it, supporting the large antenna. It was a faded gold colour, covered in rust, grime, and dirt, and most of the lights that were imbedded into it were broken, and unlit. On the front section of the roof, there was a chiselled and soldered in Autobot/CCP symbol on it, though why it was there was anyone's guess. There was an old display set embedded into the structure, placed under the Autobot/CCP symbol, but it was rusted, and beyond use. At the bottom of the dome structure, there was a round curved edge, about 2 Cybertronain stories tall, and at the front of the building, was a pair of automatic doors made of hard light, which led to the unimpressive and dull lobby of the building.

Leading up to the Archive Centre was a rather long designated pathway, made of stone rather than the usual metal of the surface of Cybertron, and on the sides to the pathway were empty metal boxes, where techno-organic or plainly organic plants or trees once sat, though they were now long gone. At the end of the stone pathway were a long set of steps, that lead down to the road and foot path, since the Archive Centre sat on a much more elevated position than the other buildings in the vicinity. The buildings around the archive centre were also rusted and old, and on of them had a hole in it's roof. At the bottom of the Archive Centre, there was an old steel box, and a few homeless bots who both Dust Up and Bumblebee recognised as the Macromasters Pulsar, Motor-Head, and Boxcar, with their adopted pet Turbofox keeping them company.

The 2 bots eventually got up the steps, and began to walk along the path to the Archive Centre, with several bots of the intelligence class and data caste eyeing them with curiosity about the fishing tools that they carried. They probably weren't expecting a Macromaster and a Minibot from the Middle caste and the Manual class to be walking towards the Archive Centre, much less with fishing rods. The caste and class social systems had been long gone, as was the prejudice and bigatory views between those naturally born and those constructed cold from the Grand Uprising and Nominus's rule, but their effects on Cybertronian society were still strongly felt, especially by the few remaining Neo-Functionists.

The 2 bots walked near to the entrance, but they stopped when they saw a familiar Minibot walking up the steps in a different direction as well, followed by 2 other Minibots as well. Bumblebee sighed to himself, while Dust Up shook her head slightly, but let herself smile slightly at the sight of a somewhat familiar face, "Hey Swerve", she chirped, "Who are those 2? Your high class escort?"

"Huh?" Swerve turned to the 2 bots as he heard what Dust Up said, his mouth screwed to a questioning look, "What? No. What? This is Tailgate and Nightracer. They were bored, so they wanted to tag along."

"Hey", said one of the new Minibots (He had a blue and white colour scheme, had a box head and boxy body, blue visor and faceplate, and what looked like a non speedster car Alt-mode).

"Yo", went the other new Minobot (This one was remarkably similar in design to the first Minibot, but spoke in a female voice, had black and blue colour scheme, was remarkably slimmer, 2 red optics, and a much rounder head).

"Oh, alright then", Dust Up said, complacent with her question answered.

"Why are you here, Swerve?" said Bumblebee, rather annoyed that he had to see him again, especially after he played third wheel to his and Dust Up's date last night.

"Oh, well, 'Optimus' forgot his wallet, so I came here to give it to him, though, I may have done a bit of compulsive shopping while I was at it", replied Swerve, gesturing to a small bag that he was holding in his left hand.

"What did you get?"

"Attack on Metrotitan on holodisk."

"Swerve, our holodisk player broke yesterday."

"Hm?"

"Our holodisk player's broken."

"...Welp, thank Primus I took the receipt while I was at it."

"Yeah, that was probably a good idea. How you doing, Tailgate?"

"Oh, I'm alright", said 'Tailgate', "Though I am bored. Mum and Dad are busy doing work related business, and me and sis-"

"It's 'Sis and I'", interjected Dust Up.

"... Sis and I were bored, like I said, so here we are, off to see how 'Optimus' and Rewind are coping, and how obviously lonely they felt without us there to make their days all that brighter!"

"Sarcasm detector is going off the charts", muttered Bumblebee.

"Sorry, quickie question", began Dust Up, "Who's Optimus?"

"Oh, it's nickname for Orion", replied Nightracer.

"Oh, well, what does it mean?"

"We don't know. Rewind just thought of it on the spot, one time, and it sounded cool, so we just stuck with it. He hates it, 'cause he finds it annoying. Which it is. Which is why we do it."

"Speaking of Orion", began Swerve, as he looked to Bumblebee, "Have you noticed that he's been acting a little, how do I put this, squirrely to you?"

"Come to think of it", replied Bumblebee, "He has been a little nervous and such ever since the shooting."

"Hold on, could someone fill me in please?" asked Tailgate, "'Sis and I' and our parents only got back on Cybertron yesterday, so we're kinda in the dark about the last week."

"Wait", started Dust Up, "You were off world? How?"

"A couple of days ago", began Bumblebee, not hearing what Dust Up said, "There was a shooting at the White Flame, and we were all witness to it. Some drunk bot was causing trouble, and one of the owners there- Fracas, I think his name was- called the CCP. Few minutes later, a group of Vehicons stroll into the bar, and he decided that it would be a good idea to aggro them, and then they just slagging killed him. Right in front of us."

"...Oh god."

"Yep, it was messed up. Orion took it the hardest though."

"Damn", said Nightracer, "Maybe that's what's gotten to him. I mean, who wouldn't be shaken up by something like that?"

"Well, he did have a tad bit of a freak out when we left the bar", interjected Swerve, "You know, after the local cops had let us go after taking in our accounts of the situation, which, I might add, they were rather eager to get past. There was this one Autobot guy called Outback, I think, and let me tell you, he was probably the most annoying and assholish cop I've ever seen. I mean, he was practically smiling at the idea of another dead-"

"Swerve", bluntly said Bumblebee, "You point."

"-Right, yeah, sorry. Yeah, Orion took it the worse, and he had a freak out after we left, but I guess now, he's now just bottling up all of his emotions."

"In that case, we should talk to him", commented Dust Up.

"Miss what's her face over here is right-", began Nightracer.

"It's Dust Up."

"-Bite me. Anyways, it's not healthy for someone to just bottle up their emoti-"

Suddenly, a bright light emerged from the Archive Centre in front of the group, and then, a massive fireball went off from inside the large building, and erupted from it, completely devastating the entire structure, though it was still fairly intact. The explosion however, was so fierce that it knocked most nearby bots off of their feet with just the sudden heat alone, and then everyone else in the surrounding radius of the Archive Centre was knocked off of their feet by the shockwave from the explosion. Anyone who was still inside the building would've been lucky to survive, as the orange and yellow flames had burned almost everyone in the building to a fine crisp of burnt metal and molten slag. Some unfortunate bots standing right outside of the building were instantly killed by the blast. They were the lucky ones. Some bots were caught alight, but they weren't immediately killed. They were left burning alive, screaming out their vocal processors, as their energon boiled and combusted, and their internal circuitry and wiring was burnt, and their sparks slowly burnt and faded in the space of a few, painfully long and agonising minutes. Pieces of debris and rubble began to fly out of the explosion, and any of the bots still left alive. One burning metal shard collided with Dust Up's face, cracking her faceplate, and shattering the glowing aqua coloured optical lens that protected her right eye, resulting in her going into stasis lock. The rest of the group received shards of searing hot metal being embedded into their metal skin, and cutting into them, knocking them out as well. The explosion rocked the local vicinity, and was visible not only across the border regions, but also across the whole of Iacon.

* * *

 **CCP headquarters Autobase Prima (Imperial Amphitheatre)  
Prowl's office (AKA the nightmare room for people with OCD)**

 _At the same time..._

If anyone would describe Prowl in a single sentence, it would most likely be 'Annoying as slag, rigid as the pit, and as cold as the winters on Eukaris'. If you entered his office, then you would probably use the exact same sentence.

If you catch him on a good day, Prowl's office was a mess of papers and datapads, with all of them strung up in an order and pattern that only Prowl himself could understand (The janitor bots were always exasperating in annoyance when they had to clean his office. So much so that they ended up having an entire tournament of rock holopad electro-cutters once over who would have to clean it). Datapads were stored in a weird order on one shelf, and paperwork and pens were stored in a weird order that only Prowl understood on the floor, with some of them being routinely knocked over when someone opened the door just to get in. It was also painted a dead and dull grey colour, where the only spots of colour in the room was a holographic image of the Autobot symbol on the wall, and the light that came in from out of the window through the blinds.

However, today, that light was gone, as the blinds had been drawn, the door was locked, and the projector had been remotely turned from a symbol to a group of holographic bots, all important members of the CCP. Prowl sat at his desk, looking at the images, while at the door, a bot known as Overshoot stood guard, wearing both the CCP symbol, and a green symbol of what looked like the face of a Luponoid. That symbol meant that he was a member of the Maximals, a highly elite and classified spec ops group of CCP, who specialised in high stakes missions and galore. It also meant that he had clearance to see what he was seeing right in front of him, because, if he didn't, then he'd, with regrets, would have to use his nudge gun on him.

See, Prowl was a member of a group of CCP members known as the Primal Council. The council were the real bots who run the Cybertronian Civil Police, had ties to the Cybertronian Assembly, did not answer to Sentinel, and regularly worked against him, the majority of the Assemby and their goons, but through more covert means, like ***CLASSIFIED INFORMATION REDACTED***. Their existence was so top secret, as to avoid jeopardising themselves and the whole CCP, that only a select few knew of it's existence, and fewer still were allowed to even interact with them when gathered together, though that was rare.

In front of Prowl's desk, stood the holographic images of Ironhide- the Leader of the CCP division in Protihex- Silverbolt- leader of the CCP division in Altihex- Hot Spot- leader of the division in Uraya- Slag- Leader of the Dynobots, a more elite group of Maximals- Cross-Cut- secret political adviser of the Primal Council, and senator on the Cybertronian Assembly- and Slammoth- leader of the CCP division in Old Polyhex.

 _"Well, the activity from the Exiled in the Outer Orion Zone has apparently ceased"_ , said Silverbolt, his holo-projection flickering as he spoke, _"At least, that's what I've been able to gather from the KURUMA network."_

 _"Did you hack into it again?"_ asked Slammoth, having abandoned his original Eukarian accent long ago, and replaced with a more softer tone. Prowl had done a lot of work to make sure that his past was hidden from anyone outside of the Primal Council, so Slammoth was definitely grateful for that.

 _"Yes, but it was surprisingly much easier this time. Maybe the system has a virus or something?"_

 _"Or Sentinel's getting sloppy"_ , replied Slag, in his gruff Eukarian accent, to much contrast to Slammoth.

 _"Perhaps"_ , said Cross-Cut calmly, his red and white body frame relaxed, and his yellow optics gazing at the rest of the council members, _"Though, we still need to play our cards right. We still have no true advantage that we can pull on Sentinel and the Assembly as of yet-"_

 _"Like it's been for da last thousand years an' such!"_ yelled Ironhide in exasperation, _"We need somethin' to pull on the ol' slagging bot in charge before he finds out we're all in cahoots!"_

 _"Ironhide's right, even if his manners aren't"_ , said Hot Spot, _"We need any advantage now more than ever, otherwise Cybertron and it's colonies aren't going to make it through the next few hundred years at the very best."_

"I'm well aware of that, Hot Spot", said Prowl, "But we just need to be patient. We've done so for so long now, and we just need to be patient for a little while longer. In the meantime, do we have anything else to discuss?"

 _"Well, I have something that may prove interesting"_ , interjected Slammoth, _"There's been a fair bit of activity near the space of Cybertron in the last few days."_

"Hm. Do tell."

 _"Well, just earlier today, there was a surge in transwarp energy just behind Luna 3. The Selene moon. Something's jumped behind the far side of the moon, and as of saying this, no further transwarp energy has been detected. I sent one of my Maximals up there earlier- Switch Blade- but I've lost contact with him."_

 _"Somethin's up there"_ , said Ironhide, _"I can fell it in my servos."_

 _"Same here, division leader. In the meantime, yesterday, an unidentified object somehow bypassed the orbital defence batteries, entered Cybertron's atmosphere, and from the looks of it, landed in Tesarus, and hasn't left yet. I sent Nitrostreak and Stopgap to it's predicted coordinates, but, well, yeah."_

 _"Ya lost contact?"_

 _"Yes, I did. 2 rookies as well. Do you think these things are all connected?"_

"They usually are", added in Prowl, "For now, let's-"

Suddenly, his office shook, and the holograms flickered for a bit. Prowl was rather surprised by this, and grabbed his desk to make sure that nothing on it fell over. Overshoot grabbed the handle of the door that he was standing near himself, to make sure that he stayed on his 2 foot articulators. Then, as suddenly as it started, after 2 or 3 seconds, the shaking stopped, and the holograms then flickered back to full resolution. Prowl wanted to see what was going on, so he looked at the holograms on display.

"We'll continue this meeting later", he said to the Primal Council, before turning off the holographic projector, and deactivating the security measures. He then remotely unlocked the door to his office, and got up, opened the door, and walked out into the busy main office section, with Overshoot quickly following behind. He saw that many other bots that worked at the CCP were also looking around, but he paid them no heed. He then saw one bot- a blue, black and white femme bot with blue eyes and what looked like a truck alt-mode- sitting at a desk, transfixed to her monitor. Prowl walked up to her, and asked, "I'll assume that you have something to show me?"

"Oh, um, yes sir", said the femme bot. She then turned her monitor to Prowl, and he didn't show his shock to what he saw. In the monitor, he recognised the old Archive Centre in the border regions, only it was up in flames, and a long pillar of smoke coming from the building, "It's the Archive Centre, sir. That ICS reporter Aston was reporting something about Turbofox healthcare near the building when it went up, and he was near the building when it went up, but we lost the signal when it went up. I'm just going off of long range feeds now, but I'm not sure if we'll lose the feed there too.

"Get First Aid, Inferno, and Hosehead down there", ordered Prowl, "And get Streetwise and his squad mobilised."

"I've tried to get some CCP officers down there sir, but the Vehicons aren't letting me."

"What?"

"They keep denying me permission to send officers down to that area. They said that they had orders to keep the area on lockdown, no matter what."

"The hell?" Prowl began to try to piece together an answer to his head. What was going on, today?"

* * *

 **The Archive Centre (Or what's left of it)**

 _Now..._

"Ugh", was the first thing that Orion muttered as he came back online, his systems rebooting themselves, as he tried to figure out what was going on. Thing was, that in order to do that, he needed to see his surroundings, and his optical sensors were still rebooting themselves. So, all Orion could see was darkness, and a few warning signs across his internal HUD. He could still feel, though, and what he could feel was a uncomfortably hot air and ground, and also someone laying on top of him in an awkward position, so that's fun. He tried to move his limbs, and found that they still worked, though it did hurt a but to move, so he decided to just lay still, and not move at all. Also, he had no idea what was laying on top of him, or even what his surroundings were, so he might move something which wasn't meant to be moved, and make the whole situation worse.

Then, a message popped up in his internal HUD, saying that his optical sensors were now coming back online. That's good. He needed to see, and he also needed to know why it was so hot. Then, the blackness that he could only see was replaced with black and white static, and then, his optics came back online, showing what was right in front of him.

Firstly, Orion could tell that he was front first on the ground, his head facing his left side. Okay, that's good. He's knows his sense of direction, he guessed. Now, he just needed to figure out where he was. Unfortunately, his vision was still hazed, and he had trouble making out what wasn't 5 feet in front of him. Though, through his haze, he saw that he was in his office, meaning that he was still in the Archive Centre. The next thing he noticed, was that the office was alight in flames, irradiating Orion in an uncomfortable, and searing heat. Okay, that's not good. Fire is not good. Fire is a bad.

Orion lifted his head up, testing to see if any of his nerve-circuits were torn or damaged, and moved his eyes to his back to see that one of the CCP bots that had come in with Chromedome- Slapdash- was laying on his back, in stasis lock. Orion made a quip in his head about taking him out to dinner first, and then, lifting his damaged right arm, shoved the Autobot off of his back, and then, in pain, rolled himself over, so that he was looking upwards. He looked down himself, to see that a chunk of his armour plating on his right side, where his lower joints and ribs were, was missing, and that those same components were quite damaged, creating a small pool of energon on the ground, and letting his sea green spark shine through. He went to touch his damaged section with his right hand so that he could apply pressure to it and slow down the blood loss, but found that there was a small piece of sharp metal impaled into his shoulder, and another into his lower arm. He then grabbed the piece of metal in his shoulder with his left hand, and pulled it out with all of his strength, wincing from the pain. He then did the same thing with the shard of metal in his lower arm, only this time, he pulled a bit of the metal plating off, though his internal wiring and endoskeleton remained functional, but scarred.

It was times like this that Orion remembered that conversation that he had with some old retired Maximals (A contingent of Spec Ops Autobots, in case you were unaware) called Under-3 and Lionhead, who told Orion that he seemed much stronger than the regular Cybertronian. That was true. He was a Point One Percenter, meaning that his spark was much stronger than the regular Cybertronian, and that gave him much stronger agility, endurance, speed, and, well, strength. It also meant that he could tolerate much more damage then the average Cybertronian, though this didn't mean that he was used to it. He wasn't a fighter. He was an archivist, for Primus sake! that's why he came to the same interview as Rewind when they found the job application for this-

Wait a minute, where was Rewind? Hopefully he wasn't hurt...

Okay, the building just exploded, and everything is on fire. Hopefully he wasn't too hurt.

Orion tried to turn himself onto his side, but, through his haze, he saw a figure approaching him through the fire, though he seemed much taller than Rewind, and much wider. Orion was stumped. Who was this guy? He wasn't Rewind, or anyone that he knew. Still, just to be sure, he muttered out, "Ugh, r-Rewind?"

"Your friends ain't dead", said the figure, now standing directly above Orion, looking down on him. Orion's vision was now no longer hazed, and he could see the figure much more clearly. He was about medium sized, and had a boxy body, with white and dark green arms, waists, upper legs, and head. He had dark grey lower legs, with grates built into them, and on the back of his legs, were what looked like tank treads. Protruding from his back were what looked like 4 missile tops, and on his chest, he wore a glowing silver Autobot symbol, and his body was decked with glowing blue details and accents. His head was rounded, compared to the rest of his body, and he seemed to be wearing what looked like a white helmet, with a glowing green visor, and a dark green strip going down the length of it. Most of his head was hidden beneath this helmet, save for his mouth, and a seemingly over exaggerated chin, which were both coloured a dark green.

The figure then smirked, and said, "Yet", as he lifted his grey right foot, and slammed it into Orion's wounded side with a satisfying crunch being heard, and energon being splattered over the ground.

All Orion could do in response was let out an audio sensor shattering scream.

* * *

 **Outside the Archive Centre  
On the floor**

When you've just been knocked into stasis onto the ground, the first thing that you'll probably feel when you come back online is confusion, then surprise as the flood of memories comes back to you, and then realisation that you are still lying on the ground. Dust Up could probably relate right about now. When her neural cluster and nerve-circuits reactivated themselves, allowing her to regain control of her body, she felt that same rush of memories and confusion, before her optics came back online, allowing her to see again. Both of her optics were fine, which was surprising, considering the fact that she just took a chunk of shrapnel to the face. She moved her hand to her face (Her arm still worked, yay) to feel if there was any damage their, and felt that her faceplate had been cracked, and the lens protecting her right optic was shattered. She also noticed that she was beginning to feel small, sharp pains across her body, and assumed that she had suffered cuts and bruises from the explosion.

Then, Dust Up felt a pair of hands on her left arm, pulling her up from the floor. She looked to her arm, and saw her boyfriend, Bumblebee, pulling her up, and slinging her arm over his shoulder. She looked at his face, and saw that one of his horns that adorned his head was broken, and that a shard of metal had pierced his cheek, leaking a drop of energon down his face. He looked at Dust Up, right in her optics, and frantically asked, "Are you okay?!"

"Er, well, I just took a piece of very sharp, burning hot metal to the face", replied Dust Up, "So I'm gonna have to get back to you on that one."

Dust Up then noticed Swerve, Tailgate, and Nightracer getting themselves up, and saw that Bumblebee had turned to them, and then said, "She's fine guys! She's fine. She's just in her sarcasm alt-mode right now."

"We're fine too, thanks for being so considerate", muttered Tailgate as he got up onto his feet, and helped his sister up.

"I think I've dented my behind", said Swerve, as he got up with a grunt.

"Okay, what the hell just- ow, don't pull my arm like that, TG- what the hell just happened?" asked Nightracer as Tailgate pulled her up.

Dust Up looked to the sudden source of heat that she could feel on her metal plating, and saw the Archive Centre aflame. The roof of the main lobby had collapsed, leaving the main entrance inaccessible, and fire was beginning to rapidly spread across quite a wide radius. The metal that made the Archive Centre was beginning to heat up, twist, and sear, and anyone who had been near the initial explosion had been fried. Dust Up could see the remains of Pulsar, Motor-Head, Boxcar, and their pet turbofox near the large building, with their limbs twisted and scorched, and the turbofox lying on the ground, burnt to a crisp, with it's tongue out, and it's head cut off by a stray piece of shrapnel. Meanwhile, the Archive Centre's domed roof was beginning to cave into itself, and fire, smoke and ash began to below out of those holes, smothering everything nearby in a thin layer of dust and ash. Few of the columns that sat outside of the large building remained standing, as most of them had broke, and fell to the ground, and the large antenna that those columns were supporting began to sway and tip against both the wind, and the lack of support that it had in holding it up. The wind itself helped to push the fire along, allowing it to spread and burn, and making it spread across the radius even quicker.

Dust Up then noticed that Swerve had gotten his DataNet phone, dialled a number, and pressed it to his audio receptor, while Tailgate said, "Does anyone have ears on Orion or Rewind!?"

"Gimme a minute!" yelled Swerve, as his DataNet phone continued to ring, buzzing away some annoyingly catchy tune from some terrible comedy show that everyone except Swerve hated. After about a minute, he took the phone away from his audio receptor, and yelled out, "He's not picking up! Orion's not picking up the goddamn phone! All I got was static white noise! I'll try calling him again, but he could be... well, yeah."

"No, he really couldn't be", adamantly stated Tailgate, "I'll try and get hold of Rewind, see if he picks up. Bee, get Chromedome on the line, and-"

Tailgate was interrupted by another explosion from the Archive Centre going off, ripping through the roof of the building with another fireball, sending shrapnel flying, and dislodging the large antenna that stood on top of the building, leading it to lean to it's side slightly, spilling age old dirt and dust onto the ground. Ash, smoke, and flickers of fire poured from the building, thickening the already existing layer of dirt and ash that laid on it's surroundings, and smothering any Cybertronians nearby in a thin layer of dust and grime.

"Okay, that's worse. The building is worse now", continued Tailgate, "The building is now worser."

"Not a word", Dust Up said.

"Time and place, lady who's name I know not. Time and place."

"Chromedome's not picking up either!" went Swerve, with his DataNet phone up against his audio receptor again, "It's just static again! Something's blocking the signal!"

"Or the giant ass antenna was relaying signals through the city, and now it's down, so are the phone lines", interjected Nightracer, "Just saying, other possibilities."

"Either way, nobody's picking up the bloody phone!"

"Ah, to hell with it. TG?"

"I'm with you, sis", said Tailgate, "Boring conversation anyway."

"Righty-ho then. We're going into the Archive Centre, and getting Rewind and Orion out, if they're even in there."

"Wait a moment-", began Dust Up.

"Wait."

"-Shut up, Swerve- you two people who I've just met want to go in there!? The burning building! Are you crazy- I mean, what do I know? I've only known you for 2 whole minutes- But still, I would very much like to build a friendship with you guys while in the land of the living, because if you go in there, you could die! Emphasise on the die part!"

The 2 minibots ignored her, transforming into their alt-modes- small, slim Cybertronian cars- and began to drive towards the entrance of the Archive Centre, but Bumblebee quickly put Dust Up down, and yelled to them, "Wait, guys, are you sure that you get Orion and Rewind out of the building, if they're in there?"

"I'm sorry, do you know us?" replied Tailgate, rather proudly, "We'll be out of there in a jiffy."

"Well, alright then, but be careful, you too."

"WHAT IN THE WHAT NOW!" yelled Dust Up as she heard what they said. Tailgate and Nightracer then raced to the entrance of the burning Archive Centre, changed back into their robot forms, and climbed through the wreckage that cluttered the still burning main lobby. Dust Up picked herself up, and looked to her boyfriend, saying, "Bee-Bee, now, don't get me wrong, I admire your faith in them, I really do, but they will legitimately die in there if we don't-"

"Dust Up, sweetie", started Bumblebee, "You ever heard of these 2 bots called Blastwave and Road Rage?"

"The 2 nastiest bounty hunters on this side of Cybertronian space? Yeah, of course I've heard of them, but I don't see-"

"Well", interjected Swerve, who then said something that all at the same time amazed, shocked, unnerved, and reassured Dust Up, "That little set of twins over there are their kids. Trust us when we say, they've been through worse."

* * *

 **Beyond Cybertron  
Behind Luna 3  
In orbit  
The _Banner of hope_**

"Well, looks like Sentinel's made his move", began Colossus, as he looked at a monitor on the bridge of the _Banner of Hope_ , the flagship of the Exiled. On the monitor, a live feed of the Archive Centre, being relayed to them by a remotely hijacked Vehicon Wallcrawler, was shown, the fire pouring out of the building. Next to him on his left stood Groundpound, Blitz, Thundercracker and Scrapper, and to his right, stood Soundwave, Skullgrin, Jolt, and Aquablast. In front of them, the Cyberdroids Clench, Leader-1, and Spark Barrel, were working controls near the monitors, continuously checking on the status of the NOA computer virus, which had about another 6 hours before the KURUMA system routed out the virus and rewrote it's coding. Across the bridge, Colossus could see various Exiled personal walking about and working at their posts on the bridge. SoundBlaster was working with the Micromasters Search and Black Out on the communications, Hydrocruiser and Hydradread were talking about new weapon designs (Well, Hyrdadread had gotten bored in his workshop, and was boasting to his fellow Storm Trooper about his new high pressure acid cannon, and Hydrocruiser wasn't listening in the slightest), Murena was looking at the both of them, with his palm in his face, looking a tad bit embarrassed, Windrazor was coordinating the ships in the Exiled fleet at his post, and Blight was walking around the bridge, impatient, and continuously asking Fulcrum if they were there yet, much to the medic's annoyance.

Through the viewports of the bridge, Colossus could see the various other ships of the Exiled, the _Fatal Consequence_ , the _Leviathan_ , the _Revenge_ , the _Victory_ , the _Torment_ , the _Tidal Wave_ (Speculated to be a lobotomised Cybertronian, but it's captain, Fathom, has never given any details about the rumour) a few armed heavy transports, a few dozen fighters, led by the Micromaster Flat-Top's personal fighter, the _Platonix_ (He named it after his ex-boyfriend, Colossus thought), and a few gunships and orbital assault carriers. Compared to the whole of Sentinel's forces, both navy and army wise, the Exiled made up about 7% of the total Cybertronian army, which is actually quite large for a rebellion. Colossus felt proud of those under his command. Despite all of the wrongs that they had done in the name of Cybertron, they had stuck together, and now were posed to getting information that could finally rally all of Cybertron to their cause, "He's sloppy as hell. Ever since the Second Beast Wars, he's lost his edge."

"What do you expect? The guy's losing his grip."

Clench and his inner circle turned around to the source of the sound, to see 2 bots standing near the door of the bridge, being Switchblade) Now having abandoned his grey, purple, and blue Autobot disguise, and now stood in his green and yellow robot form) and Voltage (A blue and silver Macromaster with a purple visor, a silver face plate, glowing purple details across his body, and had a Variable Voltage Harness alt-mode, hence his name).

"Switchblade", Soundwave started, "Report."

"Not much to report, sir", said Switchblade, "But Sentinel has moved a good lot of divisions of Vehicons to Iacon, as well as his chief lieutenant Mindset. The CCP's in the dark, obviously, so we won't have much in the way of interference from the Autobots. Unless the division in Iacon get their heads in gear before we get down there."

"I've been looking over the status of the NOA virus", interjected Voltage, "We've got about another few hours before the KURUMA network overrides the bug and rewrites itself. If we're gonna make a move, we need to do it now."

"Alright then", said Scrapper, "Jolt, Thundercracker, Aquablast and I'll head to the main hanger. We'll get the _Darksyde_ fired up and-"

"Change of plan", Colossus spoke up.

"Huh?"

"If Sentinel's moved entire divisions onto Iacon, that mean's that they'll have air support. They'll have warships moving over the city, along with fighters and galore. Those ships will shred the _Darksyde_ to pieces if you go anywhere near the city, even if their targeting systems are glitched out, and they're shooting at everyone. Also, we've never done a raid on Cybertron before. There'll most likely be orbital platforms that'll shred any unauthorised ship that gets too close."

"So what? Those batteries will be affected by the NOA virus as well."

"No they won't", said Voltage, "Those big guns run on a completely different network. We'd need to crack that one as well, and so far, we haven't made any progress with that. If the _Darksyde_ flies in alone, those guns will swat it out of the sky like a gnat. It can't just fly in. Not without support. Not without the fleet."

"So, only all of the combined firepower of our forces can punch a whole through that grid?" asked Jolt.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Can't we just orbital bombard Sentinel's location?" asked Aquablast.

"1, we have no clue where he is, and 2, wherever he is, he's probably surrounded himself with civilians", commented Thundercracker, "So that's a no-go."

"Well then", continued Colossus, as he turned back to the monitor, "Now that that's settled. Voltage, scramble the KURUMA network's targeting parameters, and get it to target everyone, civilians and CCP alike worldwide, so that-"

"I'm sorry, so that we can what? Commit genocide and then martyr them?" questioned Groundpound strongly, "No, this is- this is wrong. I putting my articulator down. Why civilians?"

"We've already discussed this, Groundpound", firmly responded Colossus as he looked at Groundpound, "I don't like this anymore than you, and I especially don't like the idea of killing innocents-"

"You were going to martyr them! I bloody knew it!"

Everyone on the bridge was now looking at them argue, not saying a word. Groundpound was fairly knew to the Exiled, and as such, hadn't properly seen what they'd had to do to survive.

"It's for the good of the people!" Colossus countered.

"In what world does getting innocents killed mean the good of the people?!"

"The same one as you! I know what we're doing is wrong, and trust me on this, I hate having to do this, but we have no choice!"

"There's always a choice."

"No, there really isn't. Sentinel's not going to back down. Same with anyone in his blasted Assembly! They love their power too much to just give it up! And to that end, they keep the people hurt and helpless!"

"So you're gonna get those same civilians killed?"

"Unfortunately so. We grab and release this information, the people will rally. A hundred is killed next to a million still living, they will riot."

"You said the data drive would be enough."

"To rally their minds to our cause, not to motivate them."

"You're gonna use the fear of the Vehicons killing them to get them to join us, aren't you?"

"..."

"... You're a bastard, Colossus."

Colossus felt the feelings that had been evoked in him when reading the writings of one 'Megatron of Tarn' rise up to the surface of his spark, as his next words escaped through his vocal processor, and out of his faceplate.

"Groundpound, we're steering our kind towards a new golden age, free from Sentinel's tyranny. Free from the tyranny of all those whom would wish to see us enslaved to their agendas. Once a new government is emplaced, I will happily accept the consequences of my actions, and face whatever punishment besets me for my sins, but right now, this is the only way. Sentinel will not go down with reason. He only recognises force, so that is what we shall deliver to him. Only through war will we win, no matter how much I detest it."

"..."

"Young one, sometimes to do good, you have to be the bad guy."

"This is wrong."

"I know, Groundpound. I know", Colossus then looked away from Groundpound, and back to Voltage, "You know what to do, Voltage. We're going to light the fire that will burn Sentinel Prime away."

"Sure thing, sir", replied Voltage, as he and Switchblade left the bridge, while Colossus and his inner circle looked back to the Monitor.

Colossus felt excitement flow through his ocean blue spark. He thought to himself that maybe, in the afterspark, his old mentor, Terminus, would be looking past his previous, sinful deeds, and would be beaming with pride at his soon to be accomplishments. Soon, no more Sentinel Primes, Mindsets, Cross-Cuts, Contrails, Avalons, Ratbats, Sigils, Knock-Outs, Legonis', and other hacks would rule Cybertron. The time of the Soundwaves, Landquakes, Preditrons, and others who truly wanted peace for Cybertron had finally come.

A golden age reborn.

* * *

 **Back on Cybertron  
Lower Tesarus  
**

It was painful for Megatron to think back on his past. All his life, ever since he was constructed, and then adopted, his family had been screwed over by organics, which had given him a prejudice against them. He won't go into detail on that. He'd been screwed over constantly by Sentinel and the Assembly as well, just because of his writings on the state of Cybertron, and his research into the old golden age, and Nominus's rule. He could remember a bit of it that he made.

 **For the state of Cybertron to be what it is now, is a mockery of what made us once great. Once, we were a spiralling empire, but not in a bad way. Aequmm Prime, Anima Bellator Maximus, and the Council of Worlds steered us to towards peace with all organics known to us now, and perhaps even unknown. Our empire was encased in gold and silver, and all in it were at peace, and found happiness in their lives. The only true time that the old Cybertronian Empire faced destruction was during the Master Wars, against the hordes of Titanmasters and Targetmasters that the Maladroids had unleased upon Cybertron, but that was braved, and all remained as it was. Peaceful, and happy. A utopia.**

 **At least, so say the stories.**

 **In truth, few accurate records of the golden age exist anymore, having been wiped away by Nominus during the Grand Uprising, and only stories and fables exist of the supposed era of peace and joy. An era that exists millions of years ago, to boot. It's why any record or talk of the golden age is met with immediate scepticism and doubt. Extremely few whom lived in that time- if it really did exist- are still among the living, as most of them were supposedly killed during the Second Civil War, and those whom do speak like they lived during the age of Aequmm prime are thought of as senile and attention hungry, which does seem like a logical reason to avoid those same people.**

 **Still though, if you do take into consideration all of the stories of Cybertron old, and compare them to Cybertron now, you will find yourself in wanting. What the space of Cybertronian civilisation is now is but a shadow of what it possibly was. We live under the thumb of a tyrannical false prime and his stooges, with an army of lifeless automata at Sentinel's beck and call. Our homes are rusted and broken, and every hour, a Cybertronian collapses, and dies of energon shortage. Every year, we tip closer and closer to extinction, and they're seems to be nothing that we can do about it.**

 **Yet, as we hear the tales of the golden age, our hearts are filled with something that we have not felt in millennia. Hope. Hope for a brighter future. And in that hope, we find the brightest of things. You see couples walking by, somehow able to keep going despite all that is around them. Somehow able to recite the Scripture of the binding spark, and create new life, despite all that they must face before them. "How can they still find happiness in all of this?" You may ask. The answer is simple. Love. Love, and hope. Hope that those who continue on after them can make the world a better place. Hope that the mistakes of the past can be learnt, and be taught to the generations of the future. Hope that after their time has past, what they leave behind can mould our world into something better, something new, something where all can finally be free.**

 **And that, I suppose, is the brightest light of all.**

It was these writings that made Sentinel hate Megatron for a brief time. These writings meant free thought, and free thought meant freedom, and freedom meant opposition. Megatron was lucky that he was just sent to prison, and tortured for weeks for his act of freedom of mind. There were, of course, worse fates than that. This didn't deter him, though. In fact, it only made him feel more unfettered when he wrote. More passionate. More motivated. Though, he did wisen up, and began trading out his writings in secret though the underground communities, which then passed on to various other communities, and even got off world sometimes, to worlds across Cybertronian space, like Caminus and Velocitron. He had once sent his pen pal and FaceplateTime buddy, 'Optimus', a digital copy of one of his works, but he wasn't sure if he ever opened up the email and read them. Oh well. One day.

"So, why did Kiloton call us all the way from Tarn to Tesarus?" Megatron heard Moonracer- his wife- asked, as their daughter, Snowglobe, held her hand, with a wide, innocent smile on her face. Snowglobe was just about below the size of an average Micromaster, yet taller than a Cyberdroid. She had boxy shoulders, and a boxy chest, waist and head, yet she also had slim arms and legs, and forming on her looked like a either a tank or a car alt mode. She also had a blue and grey colour scheme, 2 bright blue optics, and glowing red details across her body. Since she was incredibly young, at only 5 years old, and like all Macromaster children growing from their original protoform stage, it would take her 16 years until she could transform, and 20 until she was full size. Until then, she was considered a Monoformer. Moonracer, meanwhile, was a tad bit shorter than the average Macromaster, while Megatron was quite taller than said average.

"I don't know, Moon, but I feel that if he really wanted to show us something, he could of just done it over FaceTime", Megatron replied earnestly. It didn't take a mnemosurgeon to know that there were easier ways of talking than travelling between cities for Primus' sake. Instead, they had to fly all the way from Tarn to Tesarus on the _Thunder Arrow_ , which was crammed by the way, and then they had to trudge through the old spaceport, now called the Air Waves Airport, run by a real piece of work, who Megatron presumed was called Air Wave or Airwave or something, going off of the name of it, and now they have to walk through the old Tesarus arena where Megatron remembered Nominus held gladiator matches for fun before and during the Grand Uprising.

Gladiator arenas. Such savagery. You'd never find Megatron in one of those things, he'll tell you that right now.

"Oh, come on, Megs, you've known Kiloton longer than you've known me", said Moonracer, as they walked through the crowded pathways of the city. Tesarus was known for it's artisans, scholars and philosophers, but it was also known for it's faint traces of old culture, which attracted many a people from different walks of life. As such, the city became the second most populated area on Cybertron, with it's neighbour, Thetacon, becoming the third.

"Just because I know him doesn't mean I know everything that he does and or is about to do", replied Megatron.

"Mama, Papa!" chirped Snowglobe happily and innocently, "I wanna go to The Burn Outs!"

"I want doesn't get, sweetie", said Megatron with a smile, yet he also had a firm tone in his voice.

"Mmmm", Snowglobe pouted, applying a sad face to her, well, face.

" _Sigh_ , if you've been a good girl, we'll go", caved Megatron, his smile nonfading.

"Yeah!" happily and bubbly Snowglobe, jumping up and down for a few moments. Moonracer just looked at the 2, and smiled.

They continued walking for a few minutes, before Moonracer stopped them, and looked at the apartment block in front of them. She then looked to her husband, and went, "2005 WDI grove. Is this the place?"

Megatron opened up a side compartment on the side of his right leg, pulled out a small holotab, and looked at what was written on it, "...Yep, this is where Kiloton told us to meet at. Weird that we can't just go to his place."

They walked to the door of the building. The building looked run down, and was covered in rust, but, compared to everywhere else on Cybertron, that was normal. Nevertheless, Megatron felt unease. He held his arm out as they got to the door, ushering his wife and child behind him. Moonracer immediately caught wind of this, "Something wrong?"

"Yes", replied Megatron as he opened the sliding door, "Stay close, you 2."

Moonracer wordlessly nodded in compliance, holding their child close to her. They walked into the building, keeping close together as they walked up the corridor, and up the staircase at the end of it. The building had about 20 floors, and they were suppose to meet Kiloton in a room at floor 18. Once they got to floor 18, Snowglobe ran out of the staircase and into the corridor, yelling in her usual happy go tone, "Uncle Kiloton! Where are you!"

Megatron just couldn't help but let out a sigh, while Moonracer just shook her head, while having a smile in her face.

"In here", came a quiet voice. Megatron and Moonracer looked down the corridor to see an open apartment door, with the lights on and shining into the hallway. Snowglobe just giggled, and ran through the hallway and into the room, her arms in the air as she ran. Megatron and Moonracer just looked at each other and sighed in unison, before they walked through the corridor, and to the open door. When they both looked through the door, through a short corridor they saw their daughter, standing in what looked like the living room, facing the wall that wasn't visible to the parents. Her innocent smile had gone, and what looked like fear had come to replace it.

"Sweetie?" asked Megatron, as he cautiously walked through the short corridor, and into the room, not taking his eyes of his daughter. Moonracer followed behind him as well, nervous, and now slightly fearful.

Snowglobe looked at them both, and then pointed to the still not yet visible wall, and said, "Daddy, I found Uncle Kiloton."

"What are you...o-oh", Megatron finally entered the room, and saw what Snowglobe was pointing at. Moonracer entered the room as well, and covered her mouth at what she now saw.

Kiloton was dead, his mouth wide open, and his head blown open. His chest also had 2 gunshot holes in it, one in his spark, and another in his t-cog. He was below a window, and the drapes that would've covered those windows covered the corpse's shoulders had it's bottoms now stained in blood. Blood was still pooling on the ground, and the air still smelled of ozone and plasma. Judging by the freshness of the corpse, the smell, and the still pooling blood, he hadn't been dead for too long. Before Megatron could even cover his daughter's optics from the sight in front of her, he heard a chilling voice behind him.

"My, oh my. The whole family. Unexpected..."

Megatron looked behind him, past Moonracer, who had also turned to the origin point of the voice. In what looked like a kitchen section of the apartment, there stood a tall Macromaster, just about taller than Megatron, and a lot more bulk on him. He was blue and orange in colour scheme, and had glowing blue details covering his body. He wore a faceplate, and his cold blue optics pierced into the souls of the 3 Cybertronians in front of him. He had what looked like a jet alt mode, 2 grey cannons on his back, and a large blue wing each to accommodate them. In his left hand, he held a large ceremonial staff, and in his right hand, a large ion cannon. Megatron's eyes widened at this figure, and in his spark chamber, he felt fear, but less for himself, and more for those closest to him.

"But not unwelcome", finished Sentinel Prime.

Megatron quickly spun himself around, to face the tyrant. He wasn't too sure what came over him next, but whatever it was, be it fear, protectiveness for his family, or even anger, urged him to attack the prime. He lunged at the prime, his fist raised in the air, and his face screwed with hostile intent. He couldn't even let out a yell of intent before Sentinel raised his ion cannon and let out a single blue shot of plasma and ion into Megatron's chest. The blast from the bolt of energy was enough to pierce Megatron's outer armour on his chest, showing off all of his vital internal components, and sending him falling on his back onto the immemorial floor below him. Sentinel responded to this act of aggression against him by slamming his left foot articulator against Megatron's chest, pressing down on his vital components, causing the grey and black bot to send out a blood curdling scream, perhaps as a reaction, or as a cry for help. Sentinel smirked under his faceplate. The walls had been soundproofed.

Moonracer broke out of her quick shock, and, in a stupid act of instinct and adrenaline, charged at the prime, yelling, "GET THE PIT OFF OF HIM YOU GREASE LICKING-"

"Please", said Sentinel, as he quickly aimed his still smoking gun at the charging femme bot, "A little more privacy."

Another blue blast of energy erupted from Sentinel's blaster, but this time, he was shooting to kill. The blast impacted with Moonracer's head, and detonated it, causing it to explode in a very graphic fashion, sending energon, and chunks of metal flying across the room. She must've thought that she could transform into her alt mode in time, dodge the blast, and then ram into the prime, because when the once living bot dropped to the ground right before her husband, the corpse had half transformed into her speedster alt mode, and was making uncomfortable noises as her t-cog tried to figure out what to transform into without a brain module, before her lights went out, and the soul left the spark.

Megatron couldn't do anything. He couldn't even change his face to something that wasn't a neutral expression. He was in shock. He didn't know what to do. His wife had just died right in front of him, and yet he couldn't even bring up the willpower to even react to it. Snowglobe, meanwhile, in a childlike display of innocence, yet with a sad and confused expression on her face, started repeating, "Mama?" to the corpse, in hopes that her mother would get up again, perfectly fine, and hold her close.

By now, 4 new figures had entered the room. 2 of them were Vehicons, though they had red visors instead of blue, had built-in glowing purple plasma guns, and had a black and purple colour scheme, with a silver coloured head. The other 2 figures were organics, with one of them looking like some kind of green upright frog, and the other being a skuxxoid, armed with a hand held laser pistol.

"So", began Sentinel, as the 4 new arrivals encircled the bot under his heel. Sentinel seemed to notice them, but he didn't care. He just kept looking at the mech under his foot, talking to him as if he were listening, "A little spider has told me that you were still writing in your public diary. A shame really, as I'd thought the suffering from last time would've been enough to make you think more, well, politically correctly. But no, you didn't. You kept telling your very incorrect version of 'the truth' about the Assembly and I, and that's starting to make people think all of the wrong things, and I seriously cannot have people committing thought crimes, now, can I?"

"What... the pit... do you want?" muttered Megatron, rage finally starting to boil in his spark chamber.

"Well, I would very much like you to cease these lying essays that you have written. I'm already dealing with one little incident involving one bot trying to tell 'the truth'. I'd rather not deal with another."

"Then... kill me...", said Megatron, forgetting that his child was there, "Isn't that what you're hear for? Why you lured me out here? To finish the job yourself?"

"Oh indeed, I would love to kill you right now, but unfortunately, you've swayed the minds of so many poor Cybertronians to your lies. I need to bring them back into the fold. That's why I'm going to have my acquaintances here preform a little, oh, how shall I say, re-education, on a little world called Skuxxos. When you come back, you will be much more willing to speak the truth to your followers. I'm hear in person to make sure that these two idiots here actually make it through."

"Hey", muttered the toad like organic, but Sentinel didn't notice. If he did, he cared not.

"Get slagged", defiantly spat Megatron.

"Oh, now that's just bad parenting, isn't it? Swearing in front of your daughter? Shame on you", replied Sentinel smugly.

Megatron's red optics widened, and he looked away from Sentinel to see Snowglobe, still whimpering, "Mama" to the smoking corpse of her mother, glowing blue tears welling in her optics.

"Oh, and if you're worrying about your friend, oh, Optimus, was it?" said Sentinel, as he holstered his blaster, opened up a side pocket in the side of his leg, pulled out a small holoprojector from the pocket, and turned it on, showing a domed building aflame. His voice turned dark as he said, "Don't worry. He's in good hands."

Megatron was about to say something, but the Skuxxoid stopped him by slamming a clamp on his mouth, as well as binders onto his hands and legs, and grabbed him by his shoulder.

"Take the sparkling as well", said Sentinel, "For good measure."

One of the Vehicons walked up to Snowglobe, and grabbed her by her head, it's sharp claws digging into her soft metal skin. She began to wail in fear, pain, and confusion, as she and her father were dragged out of the room by the strangers, with Sentinel following closely behind. They began to climb the stairs, before reaching a door at the top of the stairs, and opening it to reveal the rooftop of the apartment block, and a shuttle ship that looked like a piece of an asteroid parked on the roof as well. The skuxxoid dragged Megatron onto the ship, while the Vehicon threw Snowglobe on, paying no heed to the tiny drops of energon that had formed on it's fingers. The frog organic then looked at Sentinel, and went, "Well then, do we get-"

"You'll get paid when you do your job, Slizardo. Not before, or after."

"O-oh, right, my apologies", said the organic, as he walked onto his ship.

"Now go", said Sentinel firmly and coldly, his vehicons standing guard behind him, "Do your work. Bring him back much more-"

Suddenly, an large explosion went off, rocking the entire city, and ending with a huge fireball, illuminating the city in a haze of orange and yellow. Sentinel and the organics looked to the fireball, only for another explosion to go off right next to the old Tesarus Arena, tearing apart a good chunk of the building, and causing a skyscraper near it to collapse into flames. Gunfire then began to erupt in the age old streets, and anti air fire from both Vehicon and CCP turrets began to fire into the air, clipping Vehicon, CCP, and civilian ships alike. One ship, the _Thunder Arrow_ , was hit right through the cockpit by a stray shell from a CCP gun, sending the shuttle craft falling down to the surface, and colliding with the burning old arena, killing all aboard. Vehicon WARBIRD fighters began to go on suicide runs, slamming themselves against the ground, random buildings, other ships in the air, and even into their own fellow fighters, while Vehicon gunships started dropping their full payloads on whatever was below them, be it buildings, roads, people, or even themselves, then the gunships' lights just flickered off, and they all just dropped like a stone to the ground. Worse though, the cruiser that orbited the city just flickered off, and dropped down to the city, detonating on impact, and covering a quarter of the city in flames and debris.

Sentinel looked on in disbelief. Those Vehicons were expensive, not to mention the raw materials went into making that army. This was going to be a logistics nightmare if he ever knew one. He looked to his personal guard, "You 2, tell me what is happen..."

He stopped himself when he saw the 2 Vehicons twitching and in place, their bodies twitching and spasming in place, while continuously repeating to themselves, "PROTECT LEADER S-S-S-S-S DESTROY LEADER S-S-S-S-S ERROR ERROR ERROR REPEAT CODE 333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333-"

Then, maybe in an act of free will, but Sentinel doubted it, both Vehicons, at the same time, slammed their fists into their own heads, clawing away at the metal, oozing green fluid down their heads. Then, the metal plating on the top of their heads was gone, and their motherboards- not brain modules, considering they weren't real Cybertronians- became visible. Then, they started slamming their fists against those same motherboards, tearing them apart as their heads became chalices of green oil. Then, they dropped to the ground, unmoving, and unresponsive. It was like something from one of those B-rated horror films. Not that Sentinel cared. If anything, he seemed to take some sort of sadistic pleasure out of the grotesque sight in front of him.

Ignoring the dead drones, and the obvious chaos around him, Sentinel looked back to the organics, and said, "Well? Go."

"Er, oh, right", said the frog like organic. Before long, the shuttle closed it's doors, leaving the cries of Snowglobe muffled, yet still audible. The shuttle then took off, somehow was able to avoid all of the AA fire, and then through the orbital grid, using the codes that Sentinel had more or less reluctantly given them.

Sentinel looked down at his foot, and saw that the green fluid from the Vehicons was pooling at his foot articulator, and he then lifted up his foot to see that it had been stained green. Great, he'd just got himself polished as well.

Ignoring the chaos around him, he shifted into his jet form, and flew off, back to the Metroplex all the way in Rodion. He should've just let one of the Assembly bots handle all of that rather ugly business. Knock-Out or Anti-Blaze (He was responsible for Tesarus anyway) or Vraz, or someone else on the Assembly could've sorted all of that no problem.

Primus, today was not his day.

* * *

 **Iacon  
Border Regions  
** **The Archive Centre**

 _At the same time..._

"Primus, it's hot in here", said Nightracer quite loudly, as to have herself heard over the sounds of the flames that encroached them as she and Tailgate walked through the still burning corridors of the Archive Centre, being mindful not to step on a body or a piece of debris. Already, they had passed about a dozen or 2 corpses, some of them Nightracer was vaguely familiar with, but not enough to give them a proper mourning. Just a sigh at the loss, but not a care more given.

"Well, we are in a burning building, sis", replied Tailgate, albeit with a much more calm tone of voice. He was right in front of her, and with Nightracer keeping up with his quick pace, he reckoned that they could reach Orion's office in about 15 minutes, if there weren't any major obstacles in the way, "Also, I'm right here, and there's no need to yell."

"I wasn't yelling."

"Yeah, you did."

"Well, okay maybe I was, but it was only so you could hear me above all of this noise."

"You mean the vwoooshing sounds? The ones made by all of the fire?"

"Yep."

"S'not that loud."

"Oh, shut it."

"Nah, I'm good", riposted Tailgate, "I like the sound of my own voice."

"Yes, I am well aware of that", replied Nightracer in slight exasperation. She was getting a tad bit bored of the banter that they had going on, right now, "We should hurry up. I can feel the heat eating away at my servos."

"Yeah yeah. Plus the building is collapsing around us, so that's a thing too."

"...True."

The twins then came upon a 4 way intersection in the corridor, and Tailgate noticed a barely intact sign on the opposite wall, in the fire, that read 'Information collection office blocks 10-19' along with an arrow that pointed down one of the corridors. Orion and Rewind's offices were in office block 13. They were on the right track.

Then, a purple energy bolt soared down the corridor on the left of them, and a scream could be heard. The twins stopped in place, not moving a servo, which didn't help with the fires licking at their metal plating, scouring them. Then, they could hear the frantic sound of footsteps coming from that same corridor, growing louder and louder. Then, a purple flash of light illuminated the corridor, as well as the accompanying sound of searing metal. Whoever was shooting at the yet unseen individual, they had certainly met their mark. A body- a grey, blue and red Macromaster with what looked like a truck alt mode- then slumped down, right in the intersection, in full view of the twins. Nightracer didn't know him, but Tailgate recognised the bot as Iron Hide, though he only knew him because Rewind once showed him a news real on the guy getting arrested by the CCP, for Syk pedalling. Tailgate looked at Iron Hide's corpse, and just let out a sigh, and shook his head. If there were any words to say to eulogise the dead bot, he didn't know them.

They moved closer to the intersection, and Tailgate peeked around the corner, to see a Black Ops Vehicon (BO Vehicons were painted in Black and Purple, with silver heads, a single red optical visor, what looked like jet modes, and a built in plasma cannon) walking down the corridor, it's feet dragging against the ground, it's head suffering damage, and twitching continuously, and it's built in cannon brimming with energy. Tailgate then noticed that through the smoke, another BO Vehicon was walking along the same path as well, mimicking the same movements as the first drone, but this drone, in it's spare hand, was dragging along a corpse, being a bot who nether of the twins recognised. The 2 Vehicons seemed to be saying something, but as Tailgate got a better listen, he heard that they were just speaking random coding, and a computer dialect that he didn't understand.

Unfortunately, the lead Vehicon saw Tailgate peeking his head out, and aimed it's arm cannon at his head. Tailgate had barely enough time to pull his head away from view before the first shot impacted with the wall, burning away the metal on the wall. Instead of just rounding the corner, and executing the 2 Minibots, the drone just stood in place and began firing wildly at the wall, raining down plasma and ion on the intersection. Judging from the damage to it's head, the BO Vehicon's targeting parameters and logic processors must have been damaged. The other BO Vehicon, however, had no such damage to it's head, and only several scratches and burns across it's body, so it's main systems must've still been active and relatively undamaged. Taking the much more logical approach, it aimed it's arm cannon at the intersection, but instead of firing, started to walk towards the intersection, computing that the easiest way to kill the 2 Cybertronians would be to just walk round the corridor, come face to face with them, and just shoot them.

"The hell are the Assembly's Black Ops doing here?!" yelled Tailgate over the gunfire, as another blast chipped the edge of the intersection corridor wall, sending metal shards flying, and clipping the wheel on Tailgate's shoulder.

"Does it matter?" yelled back Nightracer over the sounds of gunfire, "Right now, these chumps are in the way of getting to Orion and Rewind!"

"If they're even in here!"

"Tailgate!"

"Alright, alright, chill out-"

While he was talking, Tailgate transformed into his alt-mode (A small and boxy Cybertronian muscle car, which was big enough to fit in the corridor), and drove into the open intersection.

"-I've got this!"

The damaged BO Vehicon didn't seem to compute Tailgate's existence, as it just continued firing randomly at the same specific intersection wall. Perhaps it didn't compute him in the first place, and just starting glitching out. The other BO Vehicon, being much more intact, started chanting, "SEEK LOCATE DESTROY", and stood right next to it's malfunctioning counterpart, aiming it's powered up gun at the boxy vehicle in front of it. Then, a small gun like attachment popped out of the hood of Tailgate's alt-mode, and a blue laser shot out of the barrel of the attachment, and impacted with the corner of the roof above the drone. The fully functioning vehicon lowered it's weapon slightly, looking up to the roof where the blast mark became apparent, and then to it's broken counterpart. It seemed confused, Tailgate figured. Good. Just another second.

The BO Vehicon raised it's gun again, intent with finishing the job, when suddenly, the roof above it collapsed onto the Vehicon, and it's broken counterpart. Tailgate had hit a support in the roof that had already been weakened by both the fire and explosion, as well as years of neglect. The steel and wireframes of the roof, as well as all of the rubble that it had accumulated from the explosion, came tumbling down, crushing the vehicons, and showering green fluid and metal parts everywhere. A burnt corpse adorned the collection of rubble, being the same one that the BO Vehicon was dragging around. Tailgate transformed into his robot form, and was able to get a better look at the body, and saw that it was a Macromaster scaled Cybertronian, had some sort of winged luponoid alt-mode, was coloured white and grey, with a hint of purple on his face, and his wings were a red like colour. Tailgate looked at an engraving that the bot had on his shoulder, and through the burn marks, could see that it said 'Soulstice'. He wasn't sure if it was his name, or just a saying that the dead bot had, but at the moment, he didn't really care.

He saw his spark sister walking up to him, so he said, "Okay then, for some reason, these Vehicons are running around, killing anyone who's survived the explosion, which means that they were responsible for said explosion."

"Tailgate, the master of deduction, everyone", Nightracer muttered. Tailgate decided not to come up with a retort, allowing Nightracer to speak up in a much more audible voice, "Which means they're going to kill Orion and Rewind, if we don't find them first, provided that they're still alive!"

"We need to move out."

"Like music to my audio receptors."

* * *

 **Still in the Archive Centre**

"Not dead yet, are ya?" went Mindset, as he crouched near the body of Orion pax, or Optimus (Mindset liked that name. It was a stupid sounding name, but it was catchy) as his worthless friends called him.

"Urrr..." was the downed bot's reply.

"Na? Good", said Mindset. He liked talking. He liked boasting, "Now, let's get ta why you're in this lil' predicament. Not too long ago, in a place not that far from here, ya got ya on some, oh lez say, rather sensitive information, that ma boss Sentinel would rather ya don't have. Well, obv we searched your place 'fore comin' here, but we couldn't find it. Hell, me and ma associates couldn't even find its ashes, presumin' you went off and burnt it, which by da way, either means you got rid of it somewhere else (Goodie if ya did, saves me a job), or, the more fun for me option, you still got it on ya. Now, see, I really don't care what you's gonna do with it, seeing that I'mma kill you eva way, so, let's go and get dis ova with."

Mindset then stood up, and pulled his rifle from off his back. Grabbing an ammo clip that was attached to his wrist, he was about to attach it to his gun, when he saw his target looking up at him, with faint blue optics. He smiled, and waved the clip at him.

"Wanna know what this is?" smirked Mindset as he spoke in a hardly solemn fashion. He didn't get an answer, but he didn't care, "Dis lil' thing here got infernus bullets in 'em. Nasty lil' things, dreamt up ba ma boss 'imself a few orbital cycles ago", he seemed to use the more militaristic form of time telling. It was so that people outside the armed forces, or even other species wouldn't be able to tell the period of time that Cybertronian forces were conducting operations, "Once even one of des things makes contact with one of ya veins, it releases a chemical that sets the energon inside you ablaze. Just one bullet, and ya fry ta death. An' I gets the pleasure of testing the only existin' prototype."

He then clipped the ammo clip into his gun, and aimed it at Orion's head, wearing a slasher smile as he aimed down his sights, holding the rifle in one hand.

"So please, be ma guest an' smile for da bullet that's gonna crack ya head in 2-"

Suddenly, a massive voltage of electricity erupted from Mindset's body, dancing across him, and frying his body in blue lights and black marks. Mindset couldn't even scream, as the electricity surged across his body, overloading his internal programs, and crashing his systems. Mindset dropped his gun, and crashed to the floor, unconscious, and still sparking from electricity.

Orion painfully looked to his saviour, and saw a Cassettebot standing over Mindset's body, heavily burnt and damaged, and holding a thin cable in each hand, which emerged from the ground. Orion recognised him as Rewind. His blue visor was cracked, and his back was arched in execution, and pain, having never been inured to what was around him, and looked like he really wasn't living the life of Riley. His black and white body was scoured and burnt, and his reddish maroon coloured faceplate was chipped and burnt, with his orangey yellow paint details on his chest burnt as well, and his glowing blue details shining out against the orange haze of the still burning room.

Rewind then looked down at Mindset, and dropped the cables on the ground.

"Cliché bad guys always talk to much."

* * *

 **Outside the Archive Centre**

Dust Up, Bumblebee, and Swerve stood, feeling impatient, and definitely nervous. The situation outside the Archive Centre was getting worse by the minute, with the building's roof now collapsing in on itself, the flames getting bigger, and starting to spread, and just a few minutes ago, a Cybertronian who turned into a tanker truck came off of the road, and crashed right into one of the buildings near by. Swerve had noticed that the tanker bot, who died in alt-mode, had several smoking wholes in him, like bullet holes, but he didn't bring it up. He didn't think it mattered. There was fuel grade nucleon pouring out of the tanker, and if the fire spread to it and ignited the fuel, then it could level the entire block, and start a blaze that could consume the entirety of the 'Sentinel's Folly' slums.

Dust Up seemed to have the same idea, "We need to get out of here. If that tanker bot catches alight, it'll take everything from here to Sentinel's Folly along with it!"

"And leave our friends to die!?" was Swerve's response, "What if they need help when they get out?!"

"I'm sorry Swerve, but there aren't any water supplies nearby that I can see! Nothing to help smother the fire! And our circuits will fry from the heat! We can't help the others if we're all dead!"

"If we go into the building ourselves, we can get them out faster!" went Bumblebee, "If the nucleon goes off, the Archive Centre will be consumed in that fireball. We go in, grab Orion, Tailgate, the lot, and hope that the fire doesn't fry us too much!"

"Best idea I've heard today!" commented Swerve.

"Alright, I'm with you on this one", agreed Dust Up, "Let's roll... uh oh."

Swerve and Bumblebee looked to where Dust Up was suddenly looking, and saw a Vehicon walking up the steps, it's single blue visor, silver, red and blue paint, and flashing red and blue lights on it's shoulders illuminated in the orange glowing fires behind the 3 bots. In it's right hand, it held a plasma rifle, and in it's left hand, it held something, dripping with blue liquid. It's head was twitching, and it was basically shuffling towards them.

"Oh joy", sarcastically went Bumblebee, "Robo cops."

Swerve went up to the Vehicon, and began to say, "Look, mister lifeless, mean, and lifeless some more, some of our friends are in there, and we need t... to... oh my god..."

Swerve cut himself off when he saw what the Vehicon was holding. In it's left hand, it was holding a head. The head of what looked like a femme bot, dripping energon, and having a bit of a spinal strut still attached. The Vehicon was covered in scratches and dents, and droplets of someone's energon across it's body. The Vehicon looked down at the Minibot, whom was too shocked to move, and it just muttered, "DEEE... STOYYYYY..." the Vehicon then aimed it's rifle at Swerve's head, uttering at full volume this time, "DEEE...STRO-"

It couldn't even pull the trigger before a purple laser blast pierced through it's head, spraying green oil all over the ground. Dust Up and Bumblebee barely had enough time to pull Swerve away before a barrage of purple laser fire tore the Vehicon to pieces, scattering it's remains across the pavement, and leaving the area singed with smoking black marks. Dust Up tried to get Swerve out of his shock, but Bumblebee, just told her too look up to the sky, to which, she hesitantly complied, only to be met with shock.

In the sky, past the grey clouds, and black smoke, an armada of purple alien warships descended from the sky, blocking out any traces of sunlight. Dozens of alien fighters clogged the sky, doing battle with the now seemingly rabid Vehicon forces, and swarming and bombing the various buildings and skyscrapers of Iacon. A purple gunship flew down from the sky, sniping any nearby Vehicons that crossed it's flight path, and dropping from under it a large purple object, which then transformed into a 4 legged tank, and began firing missiles at Vehicon ships in the air. More dropships then kept dropping off these tank like transformers off, and then what looked like cylinder like objects started falling from the sky and colliding with the ground, opening up, and letting out drone like troops, and more obviously living Cybertronians. Gunfire stated to erupt in the streets, and explosions started to ripple through the City, starting fire after fire, and filling the streets of Iacon in a thick dark smoke.

Bumblebee looked at Dust Up, then back to his surrounding. An Archive Centre aflame, his friends in mortal danger, and now an invasion, and a war. The only thing he could say was, "How are we getting out of this one."

If there was something to say in response, Dust Up couldn't think of it.

Future scholars and historians would pore over whatever records existed of the Battle Of Iacon for years, creating their on narratives as to how the battle went, a few of them true. The only thing that could be agreed...

Was that this was the beginning of the end.

* * *

 **And boom, another chapter done, and one for the new year, as well. For a side note, sorry if the inclusion of the Cybertronian Assembly seems a little forced. I was thinking about the Builders of Cybertron from Beast Wars Uprising while I was writing this, and then I figured, what if Sentinel needed bots to help control the government and all of the cities across Cybertron, and maybe even the Colonies, and bam, the Cybertronian Assembly was born.**

 **OCs introduced: Voltage**

 **So yeah, don't forget to review, feel free to look up all of the references, changes and name changes that I made to the already existing characters and I will see you next time.**

 **Untill then, Titanmaster out,**


	6. A new beginning: Data drive

**Caminus**  
 **Cybertronian colony world  
The old Forgefire city**

The planet of Caminus was quite the famous little world, but this was for a few different reasons.

Civilisations as old as time have ancient, and possibly unreliable records, that detail the days when Caminus was known as the peak of Cybertronian culture, during it's fabled golden age (These records were as old as the Covenant Of Primus, the Book Of Logos, the scriptures of something called the Antiholocaust, and the fabled poems of the supposed Eugenesis Epoch, but few truly believed in any of them anyway). The planet was known for it's art and culture, as well as it's tolerance of different faiths and ideas. The leading religion on the planet, the Way of the Flame (An offshoot of the Covenant of Primus religion), headed by the Mistress of the Flame, taught it's followers to be tolerant of other people's beliefs and ideas, and to be accepting of them regardless. Generations of painters, poets, sculptors, actors, calligraphy artists, so on and so forth, would be made on other worlds, but they would truly be born on Caminus. The planet was in the history books of many species for it's contributions to the arts, and son, it became known as 'The planet of culture'. Soon after that, it was fabled to have been a battleground against the legions of Unicron during the crusades of the thirteen Primes and their followers.

What was certain, was that when Nominus was in charge, Caminus was a place of intolerance, segregation, and functionism. Forgefire city became a central hub for a massive prison and labour camp that spanned the entire planet. Those without useful function to Nominus' rule was sent to Caminus, where the prisoners would be forced to mine energon from the planet, sucking it dry. The prisoners themselves would have numbers burned into their chest, and would have their T-Cogs torn out of them by force. Some of those whom went through this procedure didn't survive, due to Rossum's Trinity, or just because the doctors and medics there cared little about the survival of their patients. Most of those with beast alt-modes would be domesticated, and used as literal guard dogs by the guards of the massive planet wide prison. However, even then, overcrowding was a serious issue, and prisoners were regularly gassed to death, just to make room. Cosmic Rust. It's a nasty way to die. Though, no one would come to move the bodies. Despite the energon mining, the prisoners themselves received very little fuel, and were referred to as 'Empties', and, well, let's just say that they really didn't care where their energon came from...

During the Grand Uprising, a contingent of the New Autobots, lead by the fabled Hyper-drive, would bomb the planet, wiping out many of the prisoners (Most of whom were innocents), but also allowing the rest to overwhelm and kill their oppressors, and escape. Caminus became a wasteland, and in the following 2 million years, neither Nominus nor Sentinel would have anything more to do with the planet. The few energon wells that were left on the planet were mined and emptied by scavengers, and there were very few left on the dead planet whom tried to make it their residence.

And now, Hoist got to call it home.

It had taken a lot of convincing to certain members of the Primal Council to let him and a select team move to the planet. Hoist was convinced that the best way to monitor for attacks on Cybertron from invading forces was to set up a listening outpost somewhere in the colonies. A facility where they could look out for any incoming forces, and preemptively warn the CCP back on Cybertron, to allow them to prepare their forces. Ironhide, Slammoth, Hot Spot, and Silverbolt were all for the idea. They felt that it was best to be able to see the enemy before they come at you, so that they could prepare themselves in time, which did make sense. However, Slag, Prowl, and Cross-Cut did not, though it was for varying reasons. Cross-Cut was worried that Sentinel might notice them, and then trace them back to the council, Slag felt that it was better to fight any enemies on their turf, and Prowl felt that it was a waste of manpower and resources to allocate them to some base on another planet. Cybertron was on the verge of an energon crisis, and it wasn't like they had that many resources to begin with. Still, Hoist had been able to convince them to let him go to Caminus, and set it all up, though Prowl did warn them that if there was the slight chance of the outpost being too big of a drain of resources, they were being shut down, indefinitely.

So, Hoist gathered his team, and headed to Caminus. It was a relatively small lot, to be fair. He could remember each one of their names: Rev-Tone, Erector, Wheeljack (The Primal Council had been against Wheeljack going, seeing as he was one of their most prolific scientists, but Hoist had argued that they already had Quark, Ironfist, Quickmix, and about a dozen other Autobot Scientists working with them, so one tech head leaving wouldn't have made much of a difference), Suppressor, Alpha Bravo, Countdown (He'd been pretty happy about going to another world, but was saddened by the prospect of leaving his rocket base behind), Quickslinger, Ammo, and Firecracker. Still though, Prowl had said that it was enough, and he wouldn't be allowing Hoist to take anymore bots. Not that Hoist minded, as he had agreed with Prowl on one point; the team that he had gathered was more than enough.

When they got to Caminus, Hoist and his crew immediately got to work, turning the area around their ship- the _Arclight_ \- into something more permanent. However, what they hadn't expected was for there to be locals. At the time, he didn't know wherever they had always lived in the old city, or if they had crashed on the planet some time ago, but it didn't really matter. For a few days after they landed, Hoist and his crew were constantly attacked by the locals, until they made peace with each other, and stopped the fighting. A few of the locals even began helping Hoist's team set up. He remembered their names: Windblade, Firestar, Novastar, Chromia, Nautica, Skystriker, Velocity, and Lifeline.

Now, Hoist looked over the ruined city from the bridge of the _Arclight_ , with those from his crew and the locals helping to set up a frame for a new building connected to the ship- Autobase 1, Prowl wanted it called- and a few others picking up metal shards and slabs from the ground, hoping to use the metal debris to build up the entire building. Well, he figured that it was one of the perks of living in a ruined city: Recycling.

Hoist felt a pang of sadness, commingled with guilt, as he looked over the ruined planet. He hadn't said to the Primal Council that him setting up a base on Caminus had an underlying motive of selfishness. Ever since he was Constructed Cold, during the final few years of Nominus' rule, he'd been forced to stay on Cybertron, and serve in the CCP for the whole of his life, to protect a populace that hated them, and whom also still held prejudices against Cybertronians who were Constructed Cold. Sure, nowadays people like to say that they're fine about the whole 'Constructed Cold vs natural born' topic, and that they'd moved past their prejudices, but Hoist knew better than that.

Yet, coming to this planet, those prejudices and violent acts didn't exist. Not like back on Cybertron. Here, Hoist could make a fresh start. A new chapter in his life. Here, with his crew, and a new home, he could find some kind of peace, away from the hate and anger of Cybertron.

Yet, he couldn't help but feel guilty. That's why he felt sad at the same time. It felt like he was running away from his duties as an Autobot. He should be protecting the people of Cybertron from the machinations of Sentinel and his assembly, even if the people of Cybertron were grateful for it or not. Instead, he was here, on a dead world, etching out a life for himself in an ultimate act of selfishness. His selfishness for a bit of peace in his life.

Hoist swallowed his guilt, and remembered his newfound responsibility to his team, the locals, and his new home. Self loathing can come later.

The door to the bridge opened, and Hoist turned around, to see Wheeljack and Nautica striding in. Wheeljack had a pair of electro-cutters and a electron microscope attached to a belt on his waist, while Nautica had either a hand made or customised wench in hand.

"Wheeljack", began Hoist, "If it's about your request for Prowl to send us mining equipment, I've already gotten the word back that it's not possible. Sorry", he had called Prowl last cycle on Wheeljack's request, for equipment to set up a small refinery. Apparently, there was a raw energon vein under the city, and the local that he had encountered had tried to set up their own gear to refine it, but that didn't work. Wheeljack had hoped to use the local's gear, as well as some raw materials from Cybertron to set up an independent mining system to full the new base, with Hoist's approval.

"Actually, me an' Nautica here came up here ta tell you to fergit it", said Wheeljack, in a rather gleeful tone, "She showed me a bunch of ol' minin' stuff left over from the last Uprisin' that they were usin'. It's all old an' broken, but parts of 'em all are still usable."

"Oh, really?" Hoist was genuinely intrigued.

"Really", went Nautica, "We- as in my friends and I, in case you... you know, weren't aware- tried to hybridise the old mining equipment together, but that didn't work. However, none of us had any real clue as to how to do it, and I only have limited knowledge in this sector."

"They, of course, didn't have me around", commented Wheeljack, "But, if we use all the gear on the Arclight, as well as the old minin' stuff that the locals got, we might be able to put together a lil' doohickey that'll refine the energon underground into a usable state."

"Well", said Hoist, "Are you sure that you can do it, Wheeljack?"

"I'm here too", muttered Nautica, "Just thought I'd let you know..."

Hoist didn't hear her, "I mean, I don't want to have to waste equipment and gear on a bogus."

"Aw, don't worry 'bout it, City Commander", Wheeljack had come up with the title as a joke, and now everyone was calling him it. Hoist really hoped that it wouldn't stick, "With Miz Nautica here-"

"Yay, me."

"-We can get a prototype sorted out in, oh, maybe a few orbital cycles. 3 or 4, dependin' on if we hit any snags 'long the way."

Hoist mused to himself, for a few moments. He remembered when he used to be like those 2. All eager, and ready to please. He used to be like that with Grapple, always thinking of new ideas, and pestering about them to Prowl or Silverbolt. However, Hoist eventually grew out of this, but Wheeljack- whom was born at the same time as Hoist- never did. Even so, the idea that he had right now was worth a shot, so Hoist said, "Alright then. But you've got 7 orbital cycles. Remember, the Primal Council is scrutinising this mission, and-"

A loud beeping then came from one of the monitors. Hoist turned to it, to see Ammo's faceplate and blue visor envelop the monitor. Without waiting for a response, or and preamble, he said, "Hoist, you're gonna wanna see this", Hoist's crew only called him by his actual name in major situations. More specifically, the most serious ones.

"What is it, Ammo?"

"Uploading it to the monitor now."

Hoist moved to the monitor, as did Wheeljack and Nautica. Outside the ship, through the viewports, he saw Velocity and Lifeline tending to a wounded Novastar, whom looked like she'd accidently burnt her servo with a welding tool. He then saw Windblade and Skystriker help Erector lift up a heavy looking metal beam, Firestar and Alpha Bravo take apart an old hut for spare parts, and all of the other Autobots and locals working together to help build the brand new home for them in the old ruined city. Hoist then turned his attention back to the monitor. Across it's screen, several low-res images flashed across the screen, blurred to the point of unintelligible. However, over the space of a few moments, the images focused, and the pictures became viewable.

Wheeljack's optics widened.

Nautica put a hand over her mouth in shock.

Hoist froze.

No...

Cybertron was burning.

* * *

 **Cybertron**  
 **Above Iacon**

"Better get ready back there, soldiers!" yelled Star Dasher over his internal systems, as he ferried his cargo to their destination over Iacon, "You're out of here any second!"

As the Exiled shuttlebot bounced around, reacting and swerving around the various rounds of Artilery fire and explosions, Dirtbag mused to himself as to how his short life had reached this point. He was only a few hundred years old, and yet here he was, most likely about to die for a cause that he believed in. Well, a cause that he tried to believe in.

He heard his commander, a former Autobot called Scoutstinger, replied with gusto, and then began talking to their senior commander, Armoured Corps, but about what, Dirtbag couldn't hear. Too much noise coming from outside the thin walls of the mass shifted shuttlebot. He looked out of a window, to see the chaos of the skies of Iacon, as he saw the primary shuttle of the EHC- the shuttle's designation was lost to him- travel down to the city below, with covering fire from the warp guns on the Tidal Wave shooting down any Autobot craft or malfunctioning Vehicons that got anywhere close to it. He looked to his fellow soldiers in the shuttle, trying to remember their names. He found that he could only remember the name of one. An Insecticon flier by the name of Pantsir, though Dirtbag really couldn't say that he liked the bully for a bot.

If Dirtbag was to be honest, he found himself incredibly disappointed with his short existence. Over the span of his life, he'd either been on the run from Autobots and Vehicons, just for trying to help a few citizens prop up a home for themselves, or fighting against those Vehicons as part of the Exiled. It hadn't been a fun life. If anything, the green Constructibot really despised Colossus for his part in his failure of an existence. Him and his sweet talk. He had been conscripted into the Exiled by Colossus, right when he found him, though the Exiled leader tried to cover it up with his fabled charisma. Dirtbag had fallen for it, at first, but now, he really wanted to wrap his servos around Colossus's neck and rip his head off, as vengeance for wasting his life in warzones and dank holes and caves.

His life began to flash before his optics, for just a brief second. He remembered being born to parents who he couldn't remember, running away from a swarm of Vehicons, Colossus taking him in, taking his first life- An Autobot called R.E.V.- crawling through a dark and wet tunnel on Gargoid, and now here. To a cramped, dark shuttlebot to a city where he probably wouldn't live for more than a few seconds.

The Constructibot looked out of the window, hoping to try and escape the chaos of reality for just a brief second, but as soon as he narrowed his optics, he found that there would be no peace in his life anymore.

A Vehicon WARBIRD drone was barrelling right towards them.

Before Dirtbag could say anything, the WARBIRD impacted right into the side of Star Dasher, igniting his fuel lines, and creating an explosion that consumed the Shuttlebot and all of his occupants. Dirtbag's last conscious thoughts were to damn Colossus to the same fate.

* * *

 **Above the Tagan Heights  
On route to Rodion  
**

"I give him one job, and he turns the planet into a warzone", muttered Sentinel under a synthesized sigh, as he flew over the Tagan Heights, a region of Cybertron that had been renouned for once being responsible for 40% of Cybertron's industrial output. Nowadays, the Tagan Heights and it's encompassing cities and factories were used primarily for the manufacturing and maintenance of Sentinel's Vehicon army. But now, his army was in the grips of chaos, and was tearing itself apart. Whatever was happening to his drone army, it had spread across the entire planet, with the Tagan factories ripping themselves apart with the crazed fighting between the rabid drones and the Heights' CCP defence forces. Sentinel remembered putting Eronus, Neo, and Templar in charge of the Tagan Heights. He did not expect to see them in the Assembly again. Oh well. They could always be replaced. Gravitas, Kudon, and that one from Vos- Staryell, or something- Would be suitable candidates.

Sentinel's internal comms began to buzz, and he opened the call, to see the face of Infinitus appear. The cowardly little Cyberdroid began, _"Sir- My lord- The- The planet is-"_

"I am very much aware of the situation, Infinitus", coldly and callously said Sentinel, as he flew through a column of smoke, and dodged a rogue missile that flew from the ground, "Where the hell is Mindset?"

 _"T-The last time I heard from him, h-he was in Iacon"_ , nervously stuttered Infinitus, _"M-My lord, the Exiled. Those, um, terrorists. They're attacking Iacon. It's an absolute bloodbath."_

"What?" the data drive. The evidence against him. It was all connected.

He couldn't let anyone get their hands on that evidence. Iacon would have to be destroyed. He could just blame the city's destruction on the Exiled, anyway. It wasn't like there wouldn't be any evidence to support it. Besides, if anyone didn't believe him, it wouldn't matter. It wasn't like he hadn't levelled a province before, and no one had done anything to stop him anyway.

"I am... fully aware of the situation in Iacon, Infinitus. Order the Yuss Naval Batteries and the Maxilla to target Iacon, and flatten it. Destroy it all."

 _"B-but sir. My lord"_ , began Infinitus, _"If the Maxilla and YNB target Iacon, millions of innocent-"_

"I don't care about that. Right now, every single Cybertronian in that city is the same as you. Expendable."

* * *

 **The Straits of Yuss**  
 **Yuss Naval Batteries**  
 **Maxilla**  
 **Fort Scyk**

When Drydock had received his new orders just a few minutes ago, he was only just able to hide his frustration.

His fort- Fort Scyk- Was one in a series of old fortresses, called the Maxilla, which protected the Yuss Naval Batteries, a series of cannons which had served to protect the small city of Yuss, and the much larger city of Iacon during the Grand Uprising and when Nominus made Iacon the capitol of the planet, and the seat of his empire. Now, the Batteries and the Maxilla were silent, used as a training ground for the CCP, and a glorified warehouse for old ammunition.

Drydock had been placed in charge of the skeleton crew that maintained the Maxilla and the Batteries, acting as silent guardians of Iacon and Yuss, both of it's straits, and it's city as well. The few Autobots that guarded the guns and forts made Fort Scyk their de facto headquarters, and they began a seemingly endless cycle of grunt work, which, to a basic level, amounted to checking the ammo count, polishing and oiling the guns, and whatever mindless drabble they could come up with.

But now, Drydock had received his first official orders in, well, forever: Load up the guns, and destroy Iacon.

Iacon. The once capitol of Cybertron, and home to millions of Cybertronians. Millions. How does one justify the murder of so many innocent beings?

The answer: One can't. No one can. And no one deserves the power to have to make that kind of decision in the first place.

Drydock contemplated his orders further, as he sat in his seat. Around him, the triplets- Claw Jaw, Scuba, and Ikard- Worked on the various consoles present to them, opening up lines of communications between the various Autobots present, and making sure that each of the guns was properly maintained. Dreadrock and Wing Saber stood side by side to Drydock's seat, while Evac stood guard by the door, Rotor Blaster and back missile pack ready for a fight. While they did this, all Drydock could do was sit, and muse to himself about this whole ugly mess.

The Vehicons were on the rampage, from what he had gathered. Drydock had used a lot of political manoeuvring around his superior officers to make sure that no Vehicons could be integrated into his crew. He just didn't trust them. And now, it looked like his distrust of them was for the best. From what he'd seen, right now, the Straits of Yuss- Encompassing the Yuss Naval Batteries and the Maxilla- was possibly the only safe haven on Cybertron, and maybe across the colonies as well (This might had been the thought process of many local civilians as well, seeing as how when the first shots were fired not too long ago, dozens of Cybertronians began to flood the entrance to the Maxilla, Macromasters, Micromasters, and Cyberdroids alike. Gripper, Ghibli, and Starbot- The Motorvators, as they called themselves- Had called up earlier to say that they and a few others had to try and herd the crowds just so no one was trampled to death).

However, this supposed safe haven mightn't last for too much longer. Iacon was currently under siege from both the Vehicons, and some new group. The Exiled, Drydock had been told. They'd come down in old, out of date warships, and torn the local CCP a new one. And now, it looked like they were trying to set up in Iacon. Take out the rest of the CCP lingering in the city, and establish a beachhead. But for what? An invasion? Was this the beginning of a takeover of Cybertron?

It didn't matter at the moment. What mattered now was that the fighting seemed to be spreading, inching closer and closer to the Straits from Iacon. And now, Drydock was under the orders to bomb Iacon to slag, _"Cut the rot from it's core"_ , Infinitus had propagated over comms, albeit with more stutter. On a tactical level, it somewhat made sense. If an enemy was landing troops, then the most logical thing to do was bomb the slag out of those landing sites. Take out as many enemy soldiers as you could. Deny them any chance of organising themselves. However, it didn't look like any attempts to evacuate the city were being made, which meant that there were possibly millions of innocents still in the city. So, if he were to order the batteries to destroy Iacon, those millions of innocent Cybertronians would die. Millions who most definitely didn't deserve it. Not only that, but the batteries would be identified as a key target, and come under assault as well. He'd have to get a completely inexperienced crew of Autobots to fight for possibly the first time in their lives.

However, even if he didn't give the order for the batteries to be fired, millions in Iacon would die in the fight anyway. And the Yuss Batteries would become a target anyways, most likely.

So, if he did give the order, millions would die, and the Batteries would come under assault.

If he didn't give the order, millions would die, and the Batteries would come under assault.

Dammit, he was a CCP officer. An Autobot to boot! He was meant to protect both the innocent, and those under his command. What was he suppose to do?

He looked out of the window, to see the naval forces of the Autobots floating in the vast rust sea. Depthcharge, Seaspray, Undertow, and Sea Spray floated next to the _Broadside_ , a massive platform carrier, maintained by it's captain, a Cyberdroid by the name of Blunderbuss. The _Broadside_ , as well as it's escort navybots, had much better targeting systems than the entirety of the Maxilla and the Yuss Batteries, which were designed for bombardment and nothing more.

An idea formed in Drydock's mind.

"Sir, we're ready to commence bombardment", solemnly said Scuba. It was obvious he wasn't keen on the idea of destroying his home town. Then again, when was anybody? He continued, "Waiting on your order."

"...Belay that", Drydock made up his mind, "Patch me through to Blunderbuss on the _Broadside_ , as well as the navybot escorts."

"Um, sir?" began Ikard.

"Heh, patching them through now, sir", said Scuba, with a slight bit more vigour in his voice. He seemed to be catching on. Well, Drydock wasn't too sure if he was actually catching on to his intent, but maybe he was just hoping that this was indicating a change in the orders. A change of any kind.

Just a few moments later, the holographic heads of Sea Spray, Depthcharge, Seaspray, Undertow, and Blunderbuss appeared right in front of him, their expression mixed with solemn content, sadness, conviction, and now, confusion.

Sea Spray was the one to speak first, _"Drydock, sir, what's going on? I... Well, I thought you were suppose to start the bombardment, by now?"_

"Change of plan, soldier", crisply began Drydock, "I'm not killing millions of innocent Cybertronians, when I can think of a better option."

Dreadrock next to him looked to Drydock, and then to Wing Saber. Smiles formed under their faceplates.

"Sir", began Ikard. Drydock had suspected that the wheezily little bot wouldn't go along with this change of plan. He'd always been a bit of a coward, "What are you-"

 _"What've you got in mind, boss?"_ interrupted Depthcharge.

"The _Broadside's_ \- And all of your's, by extension- Targeting systems are much more advanced and precise then the Maxilla's and Batteries combined", he said, sparing a glance at Blunderbuss as he mentioned his naval carrier, "I'm thinking, that if we remotely cross your autotargeting networks with the Batteries and the Maxilla's systems, we can increase the accuracy of the guns, and use them to snipe the larger enemy warships out of the sky. If we can't destroy them, we'll at least force the enemy ships to move away from Iacon, and cease their attacks", _and also draw them away from Iacon to the Batteries_ , he neglected to mention.

 _"Hm. Innocent people are still gonna get killed by the bombs"_ , added Blunderbuss, _"Just letting you know."_

"Yes, but it won't be as many as it could be by outright bombing the city", countered Drydock.

 _"Sentinel will have our aft ports if we go against his orders"_ , added Seaspray nervously.

"Well, what we tell him is that I forced you all to disobey your orders, and I am to shoulder all of the blame", said Drydock, "C'mon, guys, I don't like it as much as you do, but what other choice do we have? Do you really wanna be known as the bots who held murder millions of innocent people?"

 _"...Alright them"_ , said Depthcharge, _"I'm in. Always hated Sentinel anyway"_ , a chorus of nods and muttered agreed with him, _"We'll dock and head up to you. See you there."_

"Roger dodger. I'll have a team head to the Broadside, and connect it's targeting network to our own. Drydock out."

The transmission closed off, and Drydock looked to Ikard. The whiny bot fussily said, "Sir, I cannot- We, cannot do this. You cannot do this. Sentinel Prime gave us an order-"

"His assistant gave us an order, Ikard", Drydock firmly said, "And I will be happy to listen to any of your complaints, as soon as we win this battle."

Ikard looked like he was about to say something else, but Dreadrock moved a step closer to him, intimidating the smaller bot. The fussy bot then sulked back to his station, muttering to himself, though about what, Drydock didn't hear, but Claw Jaw did, who had hit his sibling on the arm, and told him to shut it.

However, what Drydock neglected to mention was that with this decision, he was now painting the Yuss Straits, and by extension, the Batteries and the Maxilla, as an important target. He had essentially sacrificed those under his command to a callous and definite demise.

Well, they were most likely going to be targeted anyway. Why delay the inevitable?

 _Such was the price for the lives of the innocent_ , he tried to justify to himself.

Tried.

* * *

 **Iacon**  
 **Border regions**  
 **Iacon Archive Centre**

There were so many other things that Slapdash could've been doing at the moment.

He could've been watching Median Metal Clamp on his TV (Well, at least the bootleg versions that he could find. Not very becoming of a CCP officer).

He could've been with his brother Road King, a keg of K-Juice in hand, and down by Sentinel's Folly, watching the Iacon 5000.

He could've just been in the White Flame with Getaway and Joyride, sipping down some of that Old Corroder stuff, and just sharing a guffaw together.

Instead, here he was, in a flaming oval building, which was on fire, trying to protect his comrades and a bunch of civvies from both the building that was on fire, but also apparently a bunch of rampaging Vehicons who were trying to kill them.

Did he mention that the building was on fire? Yeah, the building was on fire.

Another purple plasma blast rang past him, as he ducked back behind the intersection wall, while Road Rocket, whom stood in the opposite corridor in the intersection, fired 4 random shots down the hall, before ducking back behind cover as a series of laser blasts impacted with the wall near him. Road Rocket then looked to him, and yelled over the sounds of the fire and plasma blasts, "C'mon, man, shoot them!"

Slapdash quickly peeked down the hall, spotting 3 black and purple Vehicons marching down on them, their heads twitching, and sprouting out what sounded like binary coding as they marched. He quickly looked down at his rifle. He decided not to mention that he'd forgotten to bring his ammo with him. He pretended not to hear Road Rocket, and yelled to him, "We're pinned down! They're not letting us advance!"

"They're not letting up!" yelled back Road Rocket, "They're not even giving me a chance to applaud your brilliant skills of deduction!"

"Road Rocket! Time and place!" angrily shouted Manta Ray, whom was applying pressure to a wound that Rewind had gotten on his waist. Chromedome stood next to him, cracks, scars, and dents covering his body, while a large red and blue macromaster by the name of Orion Pax sat near Road Rocket, in the opposite corridor, both bots looking worse for wear. Not that Slapdash could say that he was doing any better. One of his wheels was missing, a lens for one of his optics was shattered, and he had multiple pieces of shrapnel embedded into his body frame. One of his fingers on his left hand was missing, and a shard of metal was impaled in his elbow joint, making it painful to move his arm.

Road Rocket yelled again, "I count 3 hostiles!" before throwing another orange blast of energy down the corridor.

Suddenly, the wall next to the Vehicons exploded, the flames and fragments destroying the drones completely.

"...I count 0 hostiles!"

Once the immediate fire had subsided, 2 figures- Both sharing the same bodyframe, but one of them was distinctly more female, with red optics and in black and blue colours, while the other had a blue visor, and a white and blue colour scheme- Then marched through the smoke, and saw Slapdash and Road Rocket aim their guns at them in caution. The black and blue femme then raised her hands, and said, "Hey, whoa whoa whoa, we're friendly! We're friendly! We're not with the Vehicons!"

Slapdash then heard Rewind's voice pitch up, "Nightracer?"

The femme- 'Nightracer', apparently- Heard him, and went, "Rewind?" immediately, she and the mech next to her then transformed into boxy looking car alt-modes, and drove down the uneven corridor. Before Slapdash or Road Rocket could react, they sped past them, and skidded to a halt in the intersection, transforming back into their humanoid forms, and looking around at the mechs assembled there, "Rewind! Chromedome! Orion! You're okay- Well, I mean, you're not okay, you're all battered and stuff, but I mean, you're alive!"

"It's- Augh", groaned Orion as he ambled next to the 2 new arrivals, "It's good to see you 2 again."

"Um, so", awkwardly began the blue and white bot, "What'd we miss?"

Rewind spoke up, "I'm dying."

Nightracer then yelled, "You're dying!"

Road Rocket then deadpan said, "He's dying."

Rewind then said, "Yep. I'm dying. I think. Not entirely sure. Have to get back to you on that one."

"Okay, that's not okay", went Nightracer in a panicking fashion, "How? How are you dying?! I mean, assuming that you're dying, how are you dying? How did we get to this point, where you are dying? I mean, I'm assuming that the fire and the whole explosion and stuff is probably the cause, but", Nightracer tried to inspect Rewind's wound from behind Manta Ray's hand, "Looking at this wound, it looks like more of a gunshot wound than anything else."

"Well, my money's on it being a gunshot wound", said Rewind, ceasing Nightracer's panicked rambling, "I don't really remember what happened, but I do remember waking up from stasis because of the pain from the- Ah", Rewind winced as Manta Ray shifted his hands in order to feel more comfortable, "From the wound. Then I heard some guy talking. Some guy that works for Sentinel. He was talking, and-"

Rewind then looked to Orion, who was shifting uncomfortably in place.

"Orion, he- He knew you. That guy working for Prime said that you had something that he wanted. Something that Prime didn't want getting out."

"I... I don't", Orion seemed to become even more uncomfortable, before looking down and saying, "I don't know what he was talking about", it seemed obvious that he was lying. Chromedome seemed to cringe at his excuse.

"Okay, look, questions later", began the white and blue mech, "We need to get out of here. The Vehicons are killing all survivors in the archive centre, and the entire building is falling apart around us. For repetition's sake, we need to get out of here."

"I'm assuming you've got a plan, Tailgate", commented Chromedome.

"Less of a plan, more of an objective: Survive", replied 'Tailgate', "Listen, not to far from here, there's a fire exit not to far from here, that's pretty clear of damage."

"We were heading there", interjected Manta Ray.

"Well good. Right, we'll head to the fire exit, get out of this mess, meet up with Bee and the others, grab a drink at Hardhead's or something, and make this day a good-"

Tailgate didn't get to finish his sentence. A piercing blue bolt of energy ended up striking him in the back of the head. His unmoving faceplate and visor remained inscrutable, but his body language showed that he was more surprised than in pain. The Minibot fell faceplate first to the floor, showing that the metal plating on the back of his head was completely blown off, and his cranial camber was blackened, but intact, meaning that his morphcore, brain module, and neural cluster were still intact.

At the end of the corridor, holding a smoking pistol in one hand, and a fully loaded rifle in another, stood a white and dark green Macromaster, adorned with missile tank kibble, a glowing silver Autobot symbol on his chest, glowing blue accents across his body, and a helmeted head with a glowing blue visor. Bullet and laser marks scarred his frame, and burn marks from an electric shock adorned him as well.

'Cliché good guys always talk too much."

* * *

 **Trion Square**  
 **The Memorial Centre**

Fracas ducked behind the old memorial statue for Aequmm Prime, as a rabid Vehicon fighter flew over the streets, randomly dropping a bomb on a nearby street, killing at least 3 empties that hadn't had time to get to cover. The sky was alive with war, and the streets were no better. Just a few minutes ago, he'd watched a bot called Tappet get blown apart by a random Vehicon. Now, the streets were filled with the bodies of civilians, Vehicons, and the drones of these invaders.

Fracas looked around him, amazed that the memorial centre hadn't been that damaged during all of the fighting. The memorial centre was an open area which was always available to the public, that was constructed around a few million years ago. It was basically a memorial to those who died in the fabled Master Wars, between the forces of Aequmm Prime and his Autobots, and Zardak and his Maladroids, made up of Titanmasters and Targetmasters.

Except that it wasn't fables. It wasn't myth. Not at all. The Master Wars were real. Fracas should know. He'd fought in them.

Back then, Fracas had been a Targetmaster by the name of Nightstick, and had been binary bonded to Artmaster (Now called Artfire nowadays), while Nightstick himself had been bonded to Skurge, and was once called Nebulon back then, as a sort of thank you present to the Nebulans who'd helped the Autobots reverse engineer the Targetmaster process, and develop the Powermaster process, after the entire original research into the binary bonding process prototypes had been stolen by Kakuryu, who'd changed his name to Grimmaster, and defected to the Autobots from the Maladroid menace. Once the prototype research was in the hands of the Autobots, they asked for the help of the Nebulans, and began to reverse engineer the process.

While the Titan Master and Targetmaster Cyberdroids that were used in the Maladroids were tortured into submission, the Targetmaster and Powermaster Cyberdroids were all constructed cold from the power of the Matrix of Leadership, and were made for the specific purpose of fighting in the war. Between the Maladroids methods, and the Autobots methods, Fracas couldn't really tell the difference between the 2 factions. But the power output... Primus, the devastation of the brief war made the million years later a Grand Uprising seem tame in comparison. Entire cities were completely glassed by just a single shot from a Targetmaster, and the Titanmasters of the Maladroids were gifted with extraordinary and unique powers, while the Autobot's Powermasters were gifted with enhanced speed, strength, agility, and a slag ton of energy.

Fracas wasn't going to lie. He had liked the sensation of power that would run through his veins. The feeling of unleashing an entire volley of destruction unto the Maladroids was almost euphoric, only weighed down by the memory of all of his friends and acquaintances who'd died in the crossfire.

Still, it could've been worse. He could've been a Titanmaster. Those guys were eventually driven insane and destroyed themselves, What with the taxing power regulation and the fact that one's head turning into a smaller robot meant having to share mindspace in an extremely unstable and unsafe process and all.

The Autobots and their forces eventually won the war, but then... The Binary Bonded Extirpation happened, and... Yeah. It wasn't pretty. Skurge was presumed to have been killed, and Nebulan, Nightstick, and Artmaster went underground as the only survivors. At least, the only survivors that he was aware of. They ended up changing their names a few times (Artmaster now becoming Artfire, Nightstick becoming Fracas, and Nebulon becoming Nightstick), met up with Stepper, opened up the White Flame, and have been in hiding for millions of years. It wasn't a pretty life, but it was his life.

Fracas was still surprised Nominus had left this memorial up during his long tenue as Prime. He had been eager to be rid of the legacy of the Prime before him, so it would've made sense if he'd torn down this statue, and melted it down for slag.

He figured that this battle would do it for the late Prime, as a terrorist fighter crashed into the statues of Delta Magnus and the Iacon Engine Powermasters, named after the city itself. The statues were shattered and destroyed, the flaming wreckage of the fighter generating a fireball that consumed half of the memorial centre. Fracas made a break for it, the tiny Cyberdroid running down a back alley before the fireball destroyed the age old memorial centre, unaware that an armed figure was watching him.

The Cyberdroid found himself face to wall with a tall building that signalled an end to the alleyway. Recognising the alleyway as familiar, he decided to double back and head back to his home with the others, but when he turned around, he saw a green and bluish grey Macromaster with glowing accents and visor, and bulldozer kibble standing in his way, with a gun in hand.

"Y-You!" yelled Fracas, "You were from the White Flame earlier-"

"Ursa Major", said the Macromaster, "My name is Ursa Major."

"Um, right, Ursa", nervously said Fracas, "Can I quickly ask why you-"

"You called the Vehicons", calmly, yet angrily said 'Ursa Major', "You let the Vehicons see Sixshot. You got Sixshot killed."

"H-Hey, I-I didn't know that the Vehicons were going to-"

"You could've guessed. You could've used common sense", Ursa Major then raised his gun, "You got my buddy killed, and now, I'm here to even it out."

"W-Wait", Fracas quailed, wearing a look of consternation, "Can't we talk about this!"

"We just did."

Ursa Major didn't give Fracas a chance to respond. He fired his gun at Fracas, his head and chest ripped apart by the blast, killing him instantly, his torso and legs being all that remained. The Cyberdroid, torso and all, fell to the floor, his other parts blown apart and scattered across the floor, which was laminated in glowing blue energon.

However, Ursa Major had been unaware of Fracas' long forgotten Targetmaster biology, given that he'd removed all of his gun kibble. His unique Targetmaster biology had been storing up unreleased energy for millions of years, and now, it was being released. Fracas' remains began to crackle with energy, and then they began to light up, as the remains of his spark began to overcharge and overheat.

Ursa Major was surprised when he saw the Cyberdroid's corpse heating up, and then flabbergasted when he saw an expanding ball of energy consume the corpse. Transforming into his bulldozer alt-mode, he made a move to outrun the growing ball of energy, blazing down the alley and into the crazed streets.

The growing energy ball exploded into a massive fireball that consumed an entire city block. Those who were killed instantaneously were the lucky ones. The rest were given a pained and slow death.

* * *

 **High above Iacon**  
 **The _Torment_  
Main laboratory**

"Hm", hummed Shockwave as he looked to the city block explosion in the city below. Judging from the build up of energy leading up to the explosion, as well as the immediate reaction of the detonation, there must've been a massive stockpile of energy- Most likely stored in some sort of containment device- That was shot at, and then detonated. But what kind of containment device? A nuclear or atomic reactor? Too small of an explosion, plus no immediate radiation on scans. A mobile stockpile of explosives? Too focused of a detonation. A Targetmaster or Powermaster left over from the Master Wars? Most likely. The overload of energy and subsequent release matched patterns similar, if not identical to those of the death of a Targetmaster or Powermaster who'd been building up energy for millions of years.

Shockwave had always been interested in the binary bonding process, but mostly in the idea of the Cyberdroids being able to store and use mass amounts of energy, like a generator. That kind of energy generation would be beneficial in the grand scheme of Cybertron.

"Um, sir?"

Shockwave looked from the monitor, to see Vivisector, his lab assistant, looking at him from the entrance to the lab, a datapad in hand. Shockwave then went, "What is it, Vivisector?"

"Um, Loudpedal and Oil Slick have completed their experiments back on Master. I've got the results", sheepishly answered Vivisector, waving the datapad as he entered.

"Good", replied Shockwave, as he was handed the datapad. He had ordered the 2 scientists back on Master to continue his research on generating synthetic energon, but he didn't expect them to have made any progress. Truth be told, Shockwave knew that they wouldn't really make much progress without him. All they were doing was keeping themselves busy. Colossus had told Shockwave that he didn't trust them to be left to their own experiments after the Toxitron incident (Even Shockwave could tell that trying to forcibly make a crude gestalt out of the Combatibots- A captured group of Autobots- And infuse it with a crude formula of a painful Tox-En solution was quite untasteful), so all he'd done was give them busywork, and left them at it. Hopefully Knox was keeping them on task. He didn't need her letting them conduct whatever wasteful antics they wished.

Shockwave looked at the datapad, and began to read what had been written in the report, "SE Experiment #3057... Mixture #3057... Results inconclusive... Will continue experiments until further notice. Will update upon further results", he then handed Vivisector back the datapad, "Good. Inform them to increase the phlogiston solvent by 0.1423%."

"Yes sir", Vivisector said, before walking out of the lab, tapping away at the datapad.

Shockwave then went back to work, heating up the rheanimum gas over a Bunsen burner, and then placed a sliver of dutronium metal into the glass tube, recording down the results in his audio recorder, "Audio log #2491, experiment report #659B. Upon reacting the dutronium metal sample with heated rheanimum gas, results show that the already superdense metal has completely filled the spaces between it's molecules, becoming nearly completely indestructible. However, because of the extreme rarity of both elements, the possibility of wide usage of the resulting element within the Exiled's forces is nil. My suggestion would be to use the resulting element for specific occasions. End log."

As Shockwave put down the audio recorder, and began to shelf his equipment, his one eye gazed back to the only monitor in the windowless laboratory. Curiosity got the better of him, and with his one hand- His right hand, seeing as his left had been replaced with a cannon (Loudpedal's advice had led him to make the decision)- he reactivated the monitor, seeing the ensuing battle outside of the _Torment_. Out in that battle, Colossus had gone down to the surface. Colossus, the leader of the Exiled.

Shockwave had advised against him going down. If he'd been killed down there, then the Exiled would've been leaderless. Of course, if he was killed, then there were quite a few who'd be willing to take command. But almost none of them were suitable candidates for leadership. Soundwave was an adept leader, but he worked at his best as a second in command, Preditron was too focused on honour and valour to make proper tactical decisions, Glowstrike lacked the charisma to lead, Zarak was too caught up in his own scheming, and Bludgeon...

Shockwave just knew that Bludgeon shouldn't be leader. He always had a nagging feeling whenever the thought of that spiritual warrior being leader came to mind. It was the closest thing that he had to a gut instinct. He had always found something off about that Cybertronian. How he'd always lock himself away in his quarters. How he'd talk about spirituality in the most random of places. How he'd talk to no one in particular...

Well, of course, there were logical explanations for his strange habits. He'd lock himself away in his quarters to train and keep up his martial arts skills. He speaks of spirituality because he subscribes to those kinds of practices. He'd talk to himself because he was praying to whatever god he believed in (Shockwave had found the illogical principle of praying to be a waste of time and energy. He'd seen the entire point of religion as just that, too). However, nothing felt right with the bot, and Shockwave would be damned if he let that Born-Again Metallikato enthusiast take charge. He'd take control of the Exiled from him if he had too.

Shockwave mused at the fact that he was willing to take command if anything happened, even though he had no wish for it. He was a scientist, first and foremost, anything else second. He had dedecated his life to the pursuit of knowledge for one specific purpose: The survival of Cybertron. It had been his purpose ever since he had been constructed cold during Nominus' reign. When he was brought online, his brain module had whispered those honey sweet words to him: 'You will live for the survival of Cybertron, you will die for the survival of Cybertron'. Since then, all of his actions had been driven by that single purpose. Every step, every word, every movement, had been chosen from intense internal calculations on how much it would best benefit the continuation of his home world, and his own goals and plans as well, themselves beneficial to Cybertron's continuation.

If Shockwave hadn't had his emotions purged by the CC scientists at the very second of his 'Birth', he would've found it amusing that all of his actions had landed him here, with a terrorist cell, attacking Iacon, a city on the very planet that he was suppose to protect. If 'Protect' is even the right word to use. However, over the many years, the scientist had seen enough to come to the conclusion that with the recent succession of leaders, and their actions and attitudes towards their rule, the current government of Cybertron could not be changed from the inside. Not with the cancer that rotted away it's already poisoned heart. It would have to be influence from the outside that cured the disease. Even if that meant cutting away the rot. With guns. Lots and lots of-

The lab suddenly rocked violently, almost knocking Shockwave off of his feet. He grabbed hold of the table in front of him with his only hand, watching as his exposed flasks and chemicals smashed onto the floor, mixing together and creating a noxious odour. That would be a pain to clean up.

The violent rocking seemed to stop as soon as it started, and Shockwave got back up to his feet. He'd probably feel disoriented by the sudden movement of the _Torment_ if he could feel anything at all. He picked up a shard of glass that had once been a test tube, and watched as traces of the substance that it once housed- furmanite- dripped to the floor, mixing with a puddle of obtenteum energon that had itself been stored in a test tube of it's own, and reacting with the liquid to create a small purple and green flame, that gave off a muddy grey stream of smoke.

"Sir!" yelled Vivisector, as he ran through the lab doorway, and into the cramped and dimmed laboratory, almost slipping up on the spilled liquids on the floor before regaining his equilibrium, and going, "Shockwave, sir! The _Torment_ has been hit-"

"I am very well aware of that", calmly replied Shockwave, his expressionless face and tone of voice remaining as inscrutable as always. Ignoring his panicking scientific subordinate (Vivisector was always the cowardly sort), he pressed a finger against the fin on the side of his head, pressing a switch, and activating his internal communications, "Soundwave, do you read?"

 _"Copy"_ , went the familiar voice of the Exiled's resident communications officer, _"SoundBlaster and I are on the ground. We're leading a charge on the Autobots' Iacon stronghold."_

"Confirmed", said Shockwave, as he watched the battle for Iacon on the monitor, while Vivisector, as fussy as always, was cleaning up the mess on the floor of the lab. Shockwave could see through the intense battle on the monitor that there was indeed a large surge of Exiled forces converging on the former Imperial Amphitheatre, though it was almost impossible to tell who was who. Shockwave continued on, "The Torment was just hit", whilst uploading a damage report from one of the _Torment's_ engineers onto the monitor as well, "By a large ballistic round. Can you trace back the round from it's impact zone to it's source?"

 _"Hold... I've traced it back to outside of the city, to a location called the Straits of Yuss. The Autobots must be using the old fortifications there to shell out fleet."_

"Ah, the Maxilla and the Yuss naval batteries. I am familiar with them", Shockwave paused, before saying, "Contact Alpha Team, and inform them that they have a new mission: Disable the Yuss naval batteries in the Straits of Yuss, and take the maxilla."

 _"Affirmative."_

* * *

 **Iacon  
Border regions**  
 **Near the Archive Centre**

"This is insane!" yelled Swerve, as a purple laser bolt shot right through their cover, and almost hit him in his shoulder tire. They had taken cover in the nearby ruins of a building that had been destroyed by a rogue (At least, Swerve assumed that it was rogue) missile when everything went crazy, and as of this moment, he, Bumblebee, and Dust Up were keeping an eye on the Archive Centre, behind a ruined wall, with the corpse of a CCP officer next to them, hoping that the others would be coming out of the still burning building any minute now. Preferably before the dead tanker bot inevitably exploded, taking the entire block with it. Swerve just continued his panicked ranting, "I thought this was just going to be a nice old lovely day with my mates where we could go do whatever you and your girlfriend were gonna do which I assume is Cyberfly fishing judging from the Cyberfly fishing stuff and then we'd all grab a pint from somewhere and have a jolly good time and not get shot at and have to worry about dying and yet here we are getting shot at and have to worry about dying and the world is ending and-"

"Swerve, calm down!" yelled Bumblebee to his fellow Minibot, "Now is not a good time for ranting! Now is a good time for calm!"

"Calm?! SERIOUSLY!" yelled Swerve as a missile flew through the holes of the ruined building, and hit a hut on the other side of the street. He poked his head over the cover, and indicated to the surrounding area, "Have you had your head up your aft port, or have you been willingly forgetting all of this slag!?"

The 3 bots looked around them, to the madness that had consumed Iacon. Just under a dozen alien warships- Cybertronian in design- Were floating above the city, shelling the surface below them. Some new Cybertronian force were landing on the surface, taking control of the streets, and, from the looks of it, killing anyone they came across. The Vehicons had gone crazy, shooting at everything that moved. The air was filled with lasers, ballistic rounds, missiles, and dozens of other exotic weapon's fire. A massive fire was engulfing the middle of the city, and the tanker bot's nucleon load had almost completely spilled onto the ground, creating a large puddle of fuel, that could set alight at any moment. Vehicons and what looked like drones aligned with the new faction were violently tearing into each other, with the new drones almost always overcoming the Vehicons. Meanwhile. Cybertronians aligned with the new faction were relentlessly tearing the rabid Vehicon horde apart, though some of them were themselves overcome by the swarm of mindless drones, and seem to activate some sort of self destruct, creating an explosion that would take as many vehicons as they could with them.

"We're completely surrounded by crazed mobs of Vehicons, alien invaders, and probably looters as well, the air is alive with lead and plasma, I'm pretty sure I'm sitting on a corpse, and everything- EVERYTHING!- Is on fire! FIRE!" madly yelled Swerve, "Please, tell me how I am suppose to stay calm when the beach scene from Saving Private Ragtop has suddenly decided to that it wants to let everyone know how the bot who lost his arm feels!"

"Okay, so calm isn't exactly the first option to mind! Alright then!" went Bumblebee, as he turned his optics back to the Archive Centre through the gunfire and madness of the streets, "But at least control yourself! Regain, augh, what was the word? Equilibrium! Yes! Regain equilibrium of yourself, or something! We need to get into the Archive Centre, and get Tailgate and Rewind and the others out of there!"

"Are you kidding me? Do you- We need to stay here!" cried out Swerve, "The world's a warzone now! If we go out there, we'll be deader than a dead thing on a dead day! Let's just stay here, behind this nice, sort of safe cover, and stick it out until the war decides that it wants to move on and buggers off!"

"Wha- If we don't move, Rewind and Orion and the twins will die!"

"If we go out there, we'll die! If we stay here, we'll be safe! We cant help out the others if we dead!"

Swerve's point would be rendered moot when a alien orangey gold and grey drone with a red visor, blue shoulders, hind legs, and a glowing purple symbol on it's chest and shoulders, as well as glowing purple accents, crashed through the wall next to them, and smashed into the floor, it's visor and accents losing their glow, and turning off, as well as a large dent in it's neck, covered in black oil. Over the off lined drone stood Dust Up, an oily stain on her foot. Neither Bumblebee or Swerve noticed her leave during their arguing.

Another one of the alien drones then appeared behind Dust Up, harshly grabbing her shoulder, but the Torchbearer sorority sister delivered a sharp kick to it's leg joint, smashing the joint into an oily mess, and smashing the leg off, letting the drone release it's grip, and fall awkwardly to the floor, allowing Dust Up to deliver a slam from her elbow joint to it's neck, a satisfying {CRUNCH} following as black fluid began to weep from the gaps in the drone's neck, as it fell to the floor.

Dust Up then looked to Bumblebee and Swerve, their mouths agape, "What? I practice Chōryūken? Bee, I though I told you."

"I-I mean, you did", stammered Bumblebee, "But I... I didn't think you'd be so-"

"Bad aft port?" muttered Swerve.

"I was gonna say good, but that's a good one too."

A Vehicon, it's body adorned with fresh scars and burns, then clambered over the ruins, and aimed it's plasma gun at Dust Up. In response, she kicked up one of the alien drones' rifles, and aimed it at the Vehicon.

It didn't have any ammo left.

"Oh", muttered Dust Up, "Slag."

Then, a blue plasma bolt ripped through the Vehicon's head, sending a spray of green fluid across the wrecked wall next to it, and letting the lifeless husk fall to the ground. Bumblebee had picked up the pistol of the dead Autobot near them, and had found that this gun did indeed have a full clip.

As the thudding sound of the Vehicon hitting the ground dissipated through the air, Dust Up muttered, "Woah", and then said, "Thanks, Bee-Bee", to Bumblebee.

"Er", hummed Bumblebee, before going, "No prob, bob."

"It's Dust Up."

"I knew that."

"Right then", said Dust Up, as she threw away the useless gun, and picked up the other alien drone's actually ammoed up gun, and said to the 2 Minibots in front of her, "You 2 want a plan?"

"I sense that the word 'Idiots' was to be used between 'You' and '2', but I digress", said Swerve as he grabbed a battered piece of piping from the ground, and made a sword pose with it, "Yes, we would like a plan, if you would please?"

Dust Up just rolled her optics, and cocked her newly acquired rifle, "We're gonna hold out here. We're gonna fight off anyone who tries to kill us. And if Tailgate and Nightracer and all your other buddies don't get out by themselves, then we're gonna charge into the building, save their backsides, get out, find a bar, and get absolutely hammered, because as of this moment, I think we really deserve a drink at this point."

"You know what", began Bumblebee, "That is something I can definitely get behind."

"Same here", commented Swerve.

"Well, that's good to here", said Dust Up as she spotted a warring horde of alien drones and rabid Vehicons encroaching on their position, "'Cause we've got incoming!"

Amidst the newly acquired fit for survival, the 3 bots failed to notice the alien shuttle dropping off 3 figures near the Archive Centre.

* * *

 **City Centre area**  
 **CCP headquarters Autobase Prima (Imperial Amphitheatre)**

{BANG}

The orange plasma round from Firestrike's rifle impacted with the chest of a red and black Exiled Macromaster, piercing through the armour and destroying his spark.

"Carnage!" Prowl heard one of the terrorists call out to the dead bot as he fell to the ground, over the sounds of laser fire, explosions, and crunching metal. He paid it no heed. That bot was another Exiled- Another terrorist, and not his concern.

He then felt a laser blast impact with his shoulder, causing him to fall to the ground on his back in surprise. He looked up to the shooter, to see a clawed femme bot with large wings on her back, raising one of her claws for a finishing move. Prowl quickly rolled to the side, avoiding the claw's killing blow, but the terrorist quickly raised her gun at his head, proudly proclaiming, "I don't think so, Autobot! Liftoff never lets her prey esca-"

The butt of a rifle impacted with the Exiled's head, knocking her into stasis, and sending her falling to the ground. Prowl looked up, to see Blue Streak holding his hand out to him.

"Thanks, Blue Streak", said Prowl, patting his fellow Autobot on the shoulder. Blue Streak didn't give a verbal reply. He just nodded, and joined the other Autobots holding the current front line of the battle. Prowl saw Bluestreak, Silverstreak, Getaway, Overshoot, Haywire, Joyride, Siren, Swindler, Blue Streak, Shatterpoint, and High Beam shooting away at the horde of Exiles and their drones- Prowl recognised the old designs as Galaman and Novaroid drones- while Stilleto was using her trademark knifes to hack and slash away at a group of malfunctioning Vehicons, and Windcharger was dragging away a escapee prisoner called Snapdragon, and cuffing him to a metal pole in the corner of the large, yet cramped room.

Prowl flipped over a table, and, using it as cover, fired off several shots from his shoulder launchers at the terrorist swarm, destroying several of the Galaman drones, and creating a little wall of corpses, which was starting to block up the wall.

The Primal Council member then reached for his communicator, and called up as many channels as he could, "This is Prowl, does anyone copy?"

 _"This is Ironfist here, boss! Me, Brainstorm, and Quickmix are holed up in the science lab, but we've got escapees knocking on our door! We need assistance!"_

"Hold position! We need to seal the breach in the main offices before I can divert anyone to your location!"

 _"Sir, this is Subsea! Me and Flattop are engaged in the main entrance! We've got more drones incoming!"_

"Hold them off for as long as you can, and then fall back to-"

 _"Prowl, it's Crosswise! Me and X-Car are pinned down by Vehicons and rioters near the entrance to the Great Dome! Senator Ratbat's Overcharge Terrorbots are holding them off as best as they can, but those old buckets of bolts are falling faster than a Hyenabot at a shooting range! We need backup!"_

"All of our units are already engaged, Crosswise! We can't-"

 _"Prowl! Where the hell is First Aid, Fixit and Hotwire! I've got patients piling up by the dozens here, and not enough doctors! Velocity and I can't do this all by ourselves!"_

"Ratchet, just-"

 _"PROWL!"_

"WHAT!?" Prowl yelled at the familiar voice. He'd probably get reprimanded later on for talking to Senator Ratbat that way, but he was too stressed out to care.

 _"Don't you talk to me like that, Prowl! Where the hell are your men!? We've got filthy terrorists knocking on our door! We're about to lose the Great Dome! You better be sending in support, otherwise I will have your head on a pike!"_

Prowl was really getting sick of listening to Ratbat's annoyingly whiny voice. The Senator was making it sound like the Vehicons going nuts and an invasion by terrorists was somehow his fault, "Senator, all of our officers in the city are already engaged, protecting civilians and holding off all other opposing-"

 _"I don't care about civilians, Prowl!"_ Ratbat almost screamed through the communicator. Prowl could just (Unfortunately) Imagine the lubricants and spittle coming from the Cassettebot's mouth, _"I want you to tell your forces to abandon their positions and reinforce the Great Dome and Celestial Spires, effective-"_

 _"Prowl!"_ went the voice of Firefly over the comms, thankfully interrupting the Senator's coming tirade, _"I just shot down an old Orbital Assault Carrier, but it's on an impact trajectory with the headquarters! You need to move!"_

"Firefly, what are you-"

"GET THE HELL DOWN!" Siren yelled out.

Not even a moment later, the flaming hull of an Orbital Assault Carrier smashed through the ceiling of the building, creating a explosion that ripped apart the room, sending everyone and everything in the room flying, and allowing the Exiled to finally gain entrance to the Amphitheatre.

"F-FALL BACK!" yelled Prowl, as he and the other Autobots in the room began to pour out of the ruined offices, and into the corridor, firing off rounds at the Exiled, while the terrorists shot off ballistic and laser rounds at the fleeing Autobots. As the Autobots ran down the corridor, purple rounds of energy chasing them, Prowl activated his communications, and signalled to all channels, "This is Prowl, signalling to all units in Iacon, be on high alert! Our defences at the headquarters have been breached! As of this moment, we're all on our own! Be advised, the Vehicon forces have gone rogue, Exiled terrorists have invaded, and local civilians are starting to riot as well. It appears to be safe to assume- Very safe, can I add?- That we are at war."

Meanwhile, Soundwave and his sibling SoundBlaster entered the ruined offices, seeing the corpses of Autobots, Vehicons, and Exiled drones scattered around the room. While one of the Galaman drones went to free the white, purple, and aqua green bot in the corner, Soundwave saw the dead body of Carnage- A loyal, yet sometimes sadistic member of the Exiled- Lying front first on the floor.

"Drill-Bit", began Soundwave, to a nearby Micromaster, "Have someone move Carnage's body to a ship. We'll need to store his body for a funeral on Rebirth."

"Got it, boss", said Drill-Bit, who then motioned for Heavy Load- A nearby Constructibot Macromaster- And 2 other Micromasters, Rockblade, and Refuser, to help him carry Carnage's body away.

Soundwave then looked at another Micromaster, who was helping Liftoff up, "Pan-Handler, make sure that Liftoff is properly functional. We'll need everyone fully operational for this task", he then looked another Constructibot Micromaster called Skipjack, "Signal everyone in the city: Stun as many Autobots as you can, but eliminate them if you have too. There need not be any unnecessary killings today", Soundwave then looked to another Constructibot Micromaster by the name of Steam Hammer, and ordered, "Access the files of the CCP, and start singling out any potential recruits. Anyone who meets the standard qualifications is to be freed from their cells and approached. All those whom have committed no serious crimes are to be freed as well."

"Um, what about all the other prisoners?" asked Steam Hammer.

SoundBlaster then spoke up, "Who? The murderers and looters? The terrorists and anarchists?" he then primed his shoulder cannon, "They've had their chance at life and ruined it. Kill them where they stand."

* * *

 **Outside of Iacon**  
 **Approaching the Straits of Yuss**

"Right then, fellas! You've got 2 minutes!" yelled Astrotrain over his internal speakers.

A Micromaster called Starcatcher then poked his head out of the door to Astrotrain's cockpit and yelled out, "If you lot aren't of this boat by then, I'm chucking you all out!"

"Heh, roger that!" replied Scrapper, as he looked to the rest of Alpha Team: Jolt, Aquablast, and Thundercracker. Jolt was young, and eager to prove himself as the skilled hacker that he was, but he was still too scared to step out of the shadow of his superiors. Aquablast was once a lowly ne'er-do-well, who had just been drifting around Cybertron, but now he had been hardened into a soldier under the tutelage of the Exiled, though he still had a long way to go to prove himself as truly ready for a full on war. Thundercracker was once been nothing more than a petty thief that was on the run from the authorities, and had joined the Exiled out of desperation, but now was a proper flier for the Exiled, but his spark was still not terribly up for the job, and still had his reservations about the goals and methods of the organisation.

It was a wee bit of a motley team. Very miscellaneous. But Scrapper was proud to be their leader. Regardless of all of their differences and faults, they'd stuck through the thick of it all so far, and he had no intention of letting them down now. Hell, he'd even turned down Colossus's offer to shunt him with the new Constructicon subgroup (Only Gravedigger, Buildmaster, Road Hauler, and Hightower were present in the subgroup so far).

"Alright then, lads", called out Scrapper, "We've got a new objective! In case ya'll didn't hear Soundwave's voice in your audio receptors- In which case, you all need to get them checked!- Here's the objective: The Yuss Naval Batteries are shelling our fleet, and if they keep it up, soon, our ships are gonna drop like stones! Our objective is to shut down the batteries and clear out the Maxilla, a series of forts that guard the guns! Since there are Autobot naval assets guarding the Straits, and by extension the guns, we'll have air units engaging those elements, so we're gonna have no air cover, so Thunders, you keep your eyes in the skies, roger?"

"Roger dodger", answered Thundercracker as he slammed his fist against his chest where his cockpit kibble laid, his jet wings on his back instinctively twitching.

"Right then, once we get out there, follow my lead. We'll land in the courtyard, storm the forts, neutralise any hostiles we come across, and take down the guns. Copy?"

A series of confirming nods was his answer.

"20 seconds, boys!" called out another Micromaster, Astro-Sinker, as he slammed his fist against the side of the troop bay, signalling for Astrotrain to lower the ramp. Indeed, in a matter of seconds, the ramp lowered, showing the world beyond the interior of the triple changer. Through the deafening sounds of Astrotrain's engines at full power, and the blur of the ground below, Scrapper could see the city of Iacon in the distance, flashes of orange, red, blue, and purple filling the air, as the Exiled's fleet hovered in the sky, several large flashes of blue flying past Astrotrain, and carrying themselves towards the fleet.

Then, on the ground far below, small huts and houses could been seen whizzing by. They were passing over the town of Yuss.

"10 seconds!" yelled Astro-Sinker.

The light on the side of Astrotrain's hull turned red. Aquablast slapped Thundercracker in the back, signalling him to move forward to the front of the group.

"Ready, fellas?" Scrapper confidently asked.

"01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00100001" Jolt yelled at almost the speed of light. For some reason, the purple pint sized Minibot would only talk in binary code. No one really knew why.

"I'm good!" called out Thundercracker.

"If we live through this, drinks are on Jolt!" proudly went Aquablast.

"01010111 01101000 01100001 00101101 00100000 01001111 01101000 00100000 01100011 00100111 01101101 01101111 01101110 00100001"

"5 seconds!"

The air outside of Astrotrain began to fill up with orange and blue bolts of energy.

"4!"

Alpha Team's guns primed.

"3!"

Jolt's Laser Rod blade began to crackle with energy

"2!"

The whirl of Thundercracker's T-cog filled the air.

"1!"

The light on the side of Astrotrain turned green.

"Go! Go! Go!"

Thundercracker was the first out, slipping into his jet mode, and zooming out of the triple changer with a boom. Scrapper was next, leaping out, into the sky, and falling to the ground, with Aquablast and then Jolt following as well. Down below, Scrapper could see the courtyard that lead up to the entrance to the Maxilla and the Yuss Naval Batteries. As they got closer to the ground, Scrapper could make out the few rusting old Omega Sentinels that stood silent around the guns like statues.

The massive Omega Sentinels, from what Scrapper had read in the old myths and fables, had been the greatest of Cybertronians during the Golden Age, leading expeditions into the stars, and defending Cybertron from many threats, like whatever the old Autobots were up against during the Master Wars. However, what is more concrete, is that Omega Supreme, the greatest of them, and the rest of the Omega Sentinels, sided with the New Autobots during the Grand Uprising, and helped to lead the charge against Nominus Prime's forces. But, they were captured, and put into permanent stasis. Most of them were made into the guns that make up the Naval Batteries during the brief Hydrobot uprising that took place in the last thousand years of Nominus' tenure as Prime. There were few Omega Sentinels left that hadn't been turned into immobile guns, and even then, the gargantuan statues were being cannibalised for parts by the people of Yuss. From up in the sky, the only immobile giant that was still somewhat intact was the deactivated and energon starved Omega Supreme, while the other 4 giants were almost stripped of parts and taken down to it's bare components.

An orange blast of plasma soared past Scrapper's head, bringing him out of his reminiscent thoughts. His optics refocused, pushing past the occasional buzz fly that impacted with his visor, to see several Autobots on the approaching ground aiming various weapons up, and aiming at the coming Exiled. Bolts of blue and orange flew towards the Exiled, forcing them to barrel roll and dodge the various laser bolts and missiles that flew towards them, and throwing their own volleys of fire down to the Autobots as well, aiming their weapons to the courtyard and releasing purple blasts of energy towards the Autobots.

Thundercracker soared past his 3 comrades, and fired off a succession of missiles towards the Autobots, creating balls of fire that, from what Scrapper could see, knocked all visible hostiles to the ground. Good. He softened them up. Now it would be easier to land.

Scrapper sent out a short wave remote signal to Jolt and Aquablast, and immediately, they activated their attachable thrusters, softening their inevitable landing. Steering themselves towards the courtyard, they reangled themselves foot articulators first to the ground, instead of front first, and repositioned themselves into a triangle formation, Scrapper first, Aquablast to his left, Jolt to his right. Below, Scrapper could see a blue and red Autobot with shoulder cannons and a yellow faceplate and visor getting himself up, recovering from Thundercracker's explosive volley. He was in Scrapper's flightpath. _No matter_ , he thought to himself, as he reactivated his attachable thrusters, and prepared for a soft landing.

The landing was actually a lot harder than Scrapper had figured. His foot articulators harshly collided with the chest of the red and blue Autobot, the sound of metal impacting on metal echoing through the courtyard. Sparks flew as the Autobot harshly fell on his back, his chest crippled and dented, traces of Energon weeping from fresh wounds.

"Decibel!" Scrapper saw and heard a green and dark blue Autobot yell as he jumped off of the red and blue Autobot, and aimed his gun at the crowd of recovering Autobots, Aqualight and Jolt joining him.

"Legout…", muttered 'Decibel', "Protect the civvies...", the Autobot then seemed to go into stasis, his visor going dark, but his bio lights and armour not letting go of their colours.

Thundercracker then strafed over the courtyard, dropping bombs on the crowd of Autobots, dispersing them, and off lining a few. Scrapper, Jolt, and Aquablast then transformed into their vehicle forms, Scrapper's payloader alt mode smashing into 3 Autobots and knocking them down, driving over them and crushing them under his wheels, while Aquablast and Jolt's race car and hot rod alt modes drove circles around the Autobots, their built in weapons shredding their armour, crippling limb joints, and even killing a few of them who were posing too much of a threat. Scrapper saw the wreckage of what looked like an Autobot flier fall to ground, impacting with another Autobot, crushing him to death. Thundercracker must be doing his work well up in the skies. Either that, or Astrotrain or one of the Novaroids was doing strafing runs on the courtyard.

The thought distacted Scrapper long enough for an Autobot to land a blast on his tire joint, separating the wheel from his body, and flipping him over, instinctively transforming back into his humanoid form, and slumping onto the ground.

There was no cry of panic from the other members of Alpha Team. His spark signature was still green, and he was showing signs of consciousness. Aquablast drove up to the squad leader, transformed into his robot mode, and tapped him on his shoulder where his wheel should be, "You okay, boss?" he asked, synthesising a sharp intake of breath as a laser blast chipped his own shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm good", replied Scrapper, converting his other shoulder wheel into a rocket launcher, and fired off several projectiles at a red Micromaster Autobot with tank kibble, impacting with the small Cybertronian, killing him. Scrapper heard someone yell out a name in panic, being 'Heavy-Tread', though he wasn't sure if it was the Micromaster's or someone else's. These guys seemed to have a bit of a habit of talking in name only, for some reason.

Getting onto his foot articulators, Scrapper opened up a side compartment in his leg, and pulled out a pistol, firing off a round that impacted with a Cyberdroid Autobot, blowing him apart. He then fired another series of blasts at a Macromaster Autobot, each shot impacting with a shoulder joint, shredding his arms off. An orange laser shot impacted with his wounded shoulder, the blast and heat making the leaking energon boil, cauterising the wound. Scrapper gave out a quick yelp, before blasting the shooter in the neck, not killing her, but causing her to kneel down and grab her throat, trying to stop the rapid leaking. Scrapper noticed Jolt transform quite near him and Aquablast, stabbing his energised sword into an Autobot they hadn't noticed sneaking up on them, sending electricity shooting through the Macromaster, sending him slumping to the floor, and going into stasis. Jolt then removed his sword from the Autobot, and absorbed an incoming bolt with the blade, his sword charging up again, before releasing a bolt of electricity towards a Micromaster, sending him into stasis as well.

Noticing an entrance to the Maxilla near the end of the courtyard, the 3 squad mates charged towards the door, Aquablast blasting a Cyberdroid that came out before he had a chance to reach for his gun. Several Autobots began to chase them, firing orange and blue laser bolts their way as the Alpha Squad members sprinted towards the entrance, blasting at the Autobots behind them. 2 Autobots got to close to the group, but then 2 purple laser blasts each impacted with their heads, rupturing their cranial chamber, making their heads detonate. Thundercracker then came soaring down, quickly transforming into his humanoid form, and impacting with another Autobot as he landed, rupturing the Autobot's insides. No one would be surprised if that Autobot died from internal bleeding not to long from now.

The squad made it to the door, Scrapper slamming the door to the side, and the team filling in, Thundercracker blasting at the Autobots behind them, before filing in through the door, into what looked like a corridor, and slamming the door shut behind them, using his null-rays to melt the sides of the door, mixing it in with the door, meaning that the Autobots would have to use a laser cutter to get through, which would take a while.

The squad ran down the corridor, to see 2 Autobots locking the door at the end of the corridor. Upon seeing the Exiled, one of the Autobots- A bright red and yellow Macromaster with sports car kibble- Pulled out his gun and shot the panel that the other Autobot was using, and then turned his gun to the Exiled, letting out a shot that impacted with the side of Aquablast's head, not killing him or wounding him severely, but shredding the armour and glowing green visor on his head. In retaliation, Jolt let off a charge of electricity at the Autobot, shocking him into stasis, and letting him fall to the steel ground.

"Ghibli!" (There it was again...) Yelled the other Autobot- A bright red, blue, and yellow Macromaster with a red visor and sports car kibble- As smoke wept from the other Autobot, and his paint began to rust from the heat.

"He'll live, Autobot", calmy said Scrapper, as he and the other members of Alpha Squad aimed their guns at him, "And you will too. But, only if you do exactly as we say."

* * *

 **Iacon**  
 **Border Regions**  
 **Within the Archive Centre**

"TAILGATE!" yelled Nightracer, as she raised her fist at the white and green tank Autobot, running at him, declaring, "You're gonna pay for that, you slagging-"

The white and green Autobot then just smirked, and harshly grabbed Nightracer's arm, smiling as he said, "No, I ain't."

Without a shred of effort, he slammed his foot articulator against Nightracer's chest, and ripped her whole arm out of it's socket, spraying loose wiring and energon across the nearby wall. Letting out a scream of pain, she was then slammed to the crumpled and searing hot ground, her chest armour bruised, the socket where her arm once was being cauterised by the burning heat, and the force from the impact knocking her into stasis.

The Autobot then levelled his still smoking pistol to the other Cybertronians in the room, and fired off 4 shots at the group, one blast hitting Chromedome in the neck, sending him falling to the ground in stasis, another hitting Slapdash in the chest, tearing apart his chest kibble as he fell to the ground, joining Chromedome in stasis, and the last 2 skimming the sides of Manta Ray and Road Rocket's heads, shredding the metal plating on their heads, and sending them tumbling to the ground into unconsciousness. He then levelled his gun to Rewind, but as he pulled the trigger, he found that the pistol's charge was empty, so, he just substituted shooting the cassettebot for marching up to him and pistol whipping him to the ground, slamming his foot into the smaller bot, almost crushing his head, and everything within it.

Meanwhile, Orion had fallen to the broken floor in surprise, unsure of what to do, as the white and green Autobot marched up to him, discarding the empty pistol, and crushing it under his foot.

"Hey there again, 'Optimus'", smugly said the Autobot, placing annoying emphasis on his nickname, "Time we continued our lil' talk", he paused for a second, before saying, "I'm Mindset, by ta way. Thought you'd like ta know da bot who's gonna kill ya 'fore you bite it."

"W-Who the hell are you?" stammered Orion in a fit of instinct.

"Juz said ma name, moron", 'Mindset's' smile faded, replaced with a sneer, "'S Mindset. 'Member it. You ain't got dat long ta worry 'bout it."

"Did- Did you do this?!" yelled Orion as he got up, pointing an accusatory finger at Mindset, more fuelled by instinct and rage at this point then logic and reasoning, "Did you-"

"Blow up ya lil' hidey hole? This place?" Mindset's smile emerged once again as he gestured to the fire and burning building around him, "Yeah. Yeah I did. Felt good, if I will admit."

Orion paused for a second, before, not saying a word, throwing his fist at the white and green Autobot, his blue optics burning pure with rage. Mindset's smile just widened at this, before catching the fist in his own hand, and landing his foot articulator into Orion's leg joint, twisting the metal joint back. Orion didn't have time to scream before Mindset landed a punch into his upper torso, sending him crashing through a wall, and landing on the floor of another room, next to a dead triple changer Macromaster with what looked like byke and submarine alt modes, who Orion knew as Piranha.

"Wasn't a good idea now, was it?" asked Mindset in a caustic manner, as he stomped into the room, the hot metal floor underneath him twisting at the weight of his boots.

"The hell do you want?" Orion asked weakly in defiance. He wasn't about to start puling to this guy. If he was gonna die, he'd rather do it with his pride still intact.

"I already told ya, idiot", said Mindset, "The data drive that you an' ya buddy over there picked up", he lazily gestured to the unconscious form of Chromedome, whom Orion could see was being seen to by a barely functional Rewind. Mindset continued, "An' the info on it. Me an' ma boss wan' it back. Now."

 _The data drive_ , Orion thought to himself. His memory brought up the image of this thug standing over him not too long ago, waving something called an 'Infernus bullet' in his face, and boasting through his thick accent about searching his place, though when that was, he wasn't sure.

"D-Date... Drive?" Orion heard Rewind weakly say, as the wounded cassettebot looked up from the unconscious form of his husband, his blue visor cracked and broken.

"I-I burnt it", muttered Orion, before saying at the top of his voice, "I burnt it. I threw it in my fireplace and watched it turn to ashes. There. It's gone. The evidence against Sentinel is gone."

"Is it?" asked Mindset, his rifle resting on his shoulder as he shuffled in place, trying to get comfortable in the midst of all of the fire and smoke and such, "Well, like I said, me and ma boys looked aroun' ya place, and couldn't find it's ashes in ya fireplace, even if ya burnt it. Unless ya cleaned it all up real good. But, I ain't guessin' you burnt it, am I?" Mindset then pointed an accusatory finger at Orion, saying, "I's guessin' that you's still got in on ya."

"E-Evidence?" stammered Rewind as he weakly limped into the damaged room, a piece of the metal frame within the broken wall bending slightly as he balanced his weight on the shard of metal, quietly saying, barely audible, "O-Orion, w-what, ngh", he placed his hand over the bleeding wound on his waist, "W-What the hell... Did you do?"

Orion ignored him, and said to Mindset, "Fine. I found a bunch of empties around a campfire at the edge of Sentinel's Folly, and threw the data drive in there. Let them fight over the ashes. There, happy?"

Mindset waggled his finger, as he said, "Well, if ya did do what ya jus' said, then why'd you lie the firs' time? Why not jus' start wiv that lil' excuse? Either you're a terrible liar, or jus' a real big moron, or both. So, wiv all that ou' of da way, I'mma think it's real safe ta be assuming dat you've still got da data drive, an' all da nasty evidence on it, on ya persons."

Orion didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. It seemed that the full gravity of the situation, and his own actions, had finally come down on him. He found his optics trailing down to his foot articulators.

Mindset chuckled, before saying, "Here's da thing, 'Optimus'", there was unwanted mockery and emphasis on Orion's nickname, "Like I said, I really don't care about what you was gonna do wiv da data drive an' what's on it. I'm assuming that you and ya bud over there was gonna release it to da common masses or somethin'", he gestured to Chromedome, "So, ya know, ma boss says that can't be happening, but once again, I don't care. I just get ta kill a whole list of people, and you's be on da top of dat ol' list."

Mindset then lowered and chocked his rifle, pointing it at Orion's head.

"So, I find maself repeatin' again, be ma guest an' smile for da bullet dat's-"

"Excuse me."

Mindset looked to the new voice, and was about to yell at them for interrupting him again, when he saw who was standing there. 3 Macromasters, standing in the broken doorway on the opposite side of the room. The lead Macromaster was a dark blue/green colour, with purple and orangey gold colours across his body, glowing purple accents and highlights, glowing green optics, and what looked like a truck alt mode. Another was purple and green, with a faceplate, glowing red visor and purple accents across his body, and what looked like a biplane alt mode, and the third was black and red, with glowing red optics and purple accents, and tank kibble. The only 2 things that seemed to unite these 3 random Cybertronians was that they shared a similar symbol (Being a upside down purple triangle, with a head crest on the top of it, 2 triangles cut out of the pyramid, and 2 other triangles attached to the side of it)… And they were all armed.

The lead Macromaster spoke, "We're a group of disenfranchised rebels looking for a drive that contains enough evidence to help us overthrow the hopeless autocracy that we reside under."

His gun then raised to meet the sights of Mindset's head.

"Is this the right room?"

Mindset didn't get a chance to make a coherent response. As soon as a single syllable left his mouth, a purple blast of plasma erupted from the stranger's rifle, rushing towards Mindset, and piercing his head in twain, before that same head exploded into a million pieces of wiring, broken pieces of brain module, and energon, splattering all over the careworn and burning walls. What was left of Mindset's head was a bloodied lower jaw, some loose bits of wiring, a broken backstrut, and a shattered vocal processor, spewing out sounds of groans and garbles, before going silent, his bio lights going dark, and the affects of aggressive depigmentation taking hold, his body finally falling to the ground, dead.

The stranger then lowered his rifle, took a step forward, the taut floor groaning under him, and looked at Orion, who had become fixed to the spot in shock. The stranger, in a calm and collected voice, then said, "Hello there, Optimus", he said Orion's nickname like it was his actual name, "I am Colossus. Before you ask, yes, we were standing outside the whole time, listening to your conversation. My associates and I just needed to confirm that you indeed were the one we were looking for."

It took a few moments for Orion to gain equilibrium over himself, before, trying to sound calm, said, "I-I'm going t assume that you're after the same thing as-"

"The data drive", said 'Colossus', "We would very much like to have it, if you may", although he then paused for a second, his green optics looking as if he were in deep thought, before saying, "Although, I suppose that you don't actual have to give it over. After all, it may seem that our ends align. In a way."

"I have no idea what you're talking about", said Orion in a haughty manner.

"Well, from what Mindset had said", did Colossus hear Mindset say his name, or was he already aware of him? Questions for later, "You had the data drive on you, and, he had theorised that you might wish to release it to the 'Common masses', which I wish to do, as well."

Orion tilted his head slightly, and said, "You want to release the data drive as well?" he decided not to bother with lying at this point.

"W-What the h-hell is going on?" weakly asked Rewind, as he stumbled to Orion's side, and leaned on his leg.

"Why, my small friend", began Colossus, looking down at the cassettebot, "Your friend Optimus recently acquired a piece of information against Sentinel that would be beneficial to the future of Cybertron. If this information is released, then the people will finally gain the will to rise up against his reign, and-"

"And Sentinel will be impeached", said Orion, looking down to Rewind, "With the information on the data drive, he'll be forced to step down, and someone more responsible will be placed into Primehood."

Colossus looked genuinely surprised, and then said, "Ah, my dear boy, your words speak of idealism, but they also speak of hopeless naivety. Those with sparks of poison will never back down when they have acquired power. They'll fight to the bitter end in arrogant defiance. Their souls crave the suffering of others, and they will ensure that they will be able to prolong that suffering and injustice for as long as they can. Same goes for Sentinel. Him and his associates in the Assembly will never give up all their undeserved power. This", Colossus spread his arms wide, and gestured to the burning Archive Centre and bodies around the group, "Is just one instance of the Assembly's unwillingness to let their rule slip away from them. Not as long as they live."

"Which won't be for long!" almost yelled the black and red Macromaster behind Colossus, his arms in the air.

"Which won't be for long. Well said, Skullgrin."

"W-Well, then why?" nervously asked Orion, "Why release the data drive? What's to gain, if Sentinel won't back down?"

Colossus gave off a sigh, out of clear exasperation of Orion's supposed naivety, and said, "Revolution, son. When the public sees the information on the data drive, then they will finally be delivered the courage to rise up against their oppressors. Protests will become mobs. Mobs will become riots. Riots will become armies. Armies will flock to our cause. The cause", he pointed to the purple insignia on his shoulder, "Of the Exiled. We will be united under a single banner. A single purpose. A single blade that will slice Sentinel's army in twain, and tear him and the Assembly asunder, and from it, we will build a new golden age, free from the corruption of the Primes."

"You would have war?" Orion's factor of defiance began to rise once more. He wasn't buying Colossus' rhetoric.

"What would you have me do?" Colossus' question seemed sincere, "I do not take pleasure in the act of conflict. I do not savour it. But, I understand the necessity of it. Sentinel will never go down peacefully. Not while he still walks this world. The entire concept of peace is so foreign to his diseased processors, it might as well be alien."

"You're-"

"Exaggerating? Hardly. I've seen enough of what his kind have done to know what they are."

"Cybertronians?"

"Tyrants."

"If you get your war, innocent people will die."

"If we do not fight, then Sentinel will kill us all. Give it another 100,000 years or 2, and our race will slide towards blissful extinction, and we'll become gargoyles and metal statues on a dead world. Not a bang, but a whisper. That shall be how the extinction of our species shall be remembered. Unless we free ourselves from the tyranny that we reside under."

"You keep saying 'We'. I want nothing to do with your 'Cause', or whatever", Orion defiantly stated.

"A shame", Colossus never lost his calm demeanour, "For I wished to offer you a boon."

"What?"

"To join our cause. To join the Exiled. I wish not to fight you for the data drive, but I do feel that you would-"

"Save it", snapped Orion, "You're not going to cajole me into joining your little fool's crusade. I may not have lived for too long, but I've seen enough today to know that if Cybertron falls into civil war, we'll just be digging ourselves into a grave we won't be able to climb out of. If we fight, we'll all die. But if we choose peace, we have a chance to live. To prosper. To make something good out of our world. So, will I be giving you the data drive?" he made a sweeping motion with his hand, "No, Colossus. The answer is no."

"...", Colossus then let out a loud sigh, and said, "Oh, Optimus, I did try to make you see past your blind idealism. I really did try to help you. But, in the end, you just couldn't help yourself", he then signalled to his 2 compatriots, "Take the drive off of him."

The 2 Macromasters took a step forward, but then Orion made a sweeping motion with his feet, in an attempt to throw Colossus off balance. It didn't work, however, and the 2 Macromasters ended up in a scuffle with Orion, throwing fists at the red and blue bot.

Colossus then walked up to Orion, and slammed his fist in his chest, tiny streams of green light from his spark shining through his shattered metal plating. But Orion was unfettered, as he grasped hold of Colossus' rifle, trying to snatch it from him. The struggle between them lasted for a few more seconds, before...

{KA-CHOOM}

Colossus had pulled the trigger of his gun, sending a purple blast of energy into Orion's chest, tearing apart his outer hide, leaving his inner components and green spark visible. Now soaked in Orion's energon, Colossus threw his body onto the ground, steam erupting from the whole in his chest.

"ORI-" began Rewind in surprise, but a split second after he started, a kick from 'Skullgrin' sent him tumbling to the ground, his visor going dark.

"Do not interrupt the boss!" yelled Skullgrin.

"Steel yourself, Skullgrin", said Colossus, as he knelt down next to Orion, whispering, "Damn you, Optimus. Damn you for making me do that", before saying to Skullgrin, "If you wish for violence, then go find some Vehicons to tear apart. We have no need for it here", he then grabbed a piece of Orion's torso, and ripped it off, sending energon over the floor, as he looked for a compartment where the data drive could be. Then, a wheel was removed, then a headlight was smashed, before Colossus took notice of an irregular panel on his cracked visor, and peeled it off to reveal the data drive inside, "Bingo", he said as he took it out of the face plate, and pulled out a datapad, and connected the data drive to it, meanwhile signalling a known frequency over his internal comms, "Soundwave, do you read?"

 _"Affirmative"_ , went the electronic voice of the chief communications officer of the Exiled.

"I have the data drive, and the files on it. I'm sending them to you now. Once you have them, begin uploading them to the Interchannel."

 _"Affirmative. Receiving...I have the files. Uploading them now."_

"Roger. We'll get going, then", said Colossus, "Tell Onyx Primal to bring the _Kiro_ down to the Archive Centre", Colossus then hung up, and said to his 2 compatriots, "Our task is done here. Let move out before the Vehicons sober up."

The 3 Exileds began to leave the tattered room, but then looked behind them upon hearing a loud groan, spotting the Autobots in the opposite hallway beginning to come into consciousness.

"Those guys are gettin' up, Colossus", said the purple and green Macromaster.

"Then do with them as you will, Blitz", said Colossus, as he and Skullgrin began to walk out of the room, "One less Autobot is good for us in the coming war, but be quick about it. We can't stay here for long."

"Heh", went 'Blitz', as he slammed his foot articulator into Chromedome's head, "Sure thing boss."

Once Colossus and Skullgrin left the broken room, and ran down the shattered and crumbling corridors, Blitz smashed his domed arm against Chromedome's chest, and tore off the front part of the armour, revealing his still glowing blue spark.

"Gonna kill you", muttered Blitz, the ends of his domed arms converting into claws, and grasped his hand around Chromedome's spark, squeezing, watching the innermost energon trickle down his claws, "And you know what? I don't think anyone's gonna remember-"

{BANG}

"Ugh", was Blitz's response to the strange sudden feeling in his neck. Huh. Was he just shot?

Then, he began to feel warm. Then hot. Then searing.

He looked down to his arms, to see smoke and steam erupting from every part of his body. Then, he could feel burning hot liquid pour from his optics and through his visor, and from his joints as well.

Then, the fire came.

It erupted from his joints, and then from his optics, and from the bloodied hole in his neck. The energon within him had somehow been set alight. He head been blinded by flames. He could feel the metal in his body melting away. He could feel the flames licking away at his brain module. The pain was agonising.

"Augh, AUGH, AUUUUUUGGGHHHH, AAAAUUUUGGGGGHHHHH, AAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!" Blitz screamed in shear pain as he felt one of his arms melt off, his burning energon spraying across the wall, like a unholy light show. His limbs and joints began to melt off, the ugly display falling and withering on the ground, continuously screaming in agony until his voice box and vocal processors melted away, leaving him silent, yet still screaming in his mind, until the flames burnt away his spark and brain module, his mind breaking apart and destroying itself, before his life left his prison of agony, and his last coherent thought was to see his killer, and scream, his lifeless body melted in place, his exostructure visible and burnt in place as his face was frozen, locked in a constant, never ending scream.

Rewind dropped Mindset's emptied rifle, and fell back to the floor. What was that? Bullets don't work like that. That shouldn't have happened. He just wanted to incapacitate the Cybertronian who was attacking his husband, not... That.

He grabbed his knees, and held them close to him, rocking back and force in place amongst the still raw flames. It took him about a good minute to remember the still bleeding wound in his waist. He tried to apply pressure to it, but found that it was too late. He could feel his systems going offline at the lack of energon and his wounds.

As he toppled over, the grasps of stasis pulling him away, he saw Orion, covered in energon, and practically falling apart at the seams, get himself up, and march to the smashed doorway, "O-Orion", weakly muttered Rewind, "P-P-Please..."

"I-I-I can't", Orion stammered, as he tried to transform, but found that his T-cog was jammed, so, he just starting limping down the corridor, "I can't... Let... Colossus... Win..."

"W-Wait, Orion", he quietly strained, as he fell into the maw of stasis, his last words being, "You'd... Leave us to... Die..."

* * *

 **The Straits of Yuss  
** **Yuss Naval Batteries  
** **Maxilla  
** **Fort Scyk**

"Blunderbuss is reporting multiple casualties on the _Broadside_ , sir!" Wing Saber reported as he stood next to Ikard's station, spying on his monitor, "And we've lost contact with Sea Spray!"

"Fizzle is reporting a breach at one of the Maxilla entrance", went Scuba, "Heavy-Tread, Cogman, D-Day and several others are KIA. Dozens are injured. Medix and Panzer are reporting that Deduce, Beacon, Snowblind and Steelshot might not make it."

"Tell Medix and his crew to put those with serious injuries into stasis pods, and start working on those who can be fixed in a short period of time", ordered Drydock from his chair, who then looked to Claw Jaw and asked, "What of the civilians?"

"Offshoot's reporting that the civilians are getting exceptionally rowdy. Someone called 'The Man Terror', or something, and a few other civies tried to raid the armoury for guns and hold everyone hostage, but Landshark's unit was able to stop them. But the rest of the civies are getting desperate. They're gonna start rioting in a bit if we don't do something!"

"Well, order Offshoot to calm them down, then! We can't deal with rogue Vehicons, terrorist invasions, and rioting civies at the same-"

Then, the door to the command room went {KNOCK KNOCK}, and the room went silent.

Evac went to the comm panel in the wall next to the door, and pressed down on a button, going, "Who's out there?"

 _"It's, um, it's Starbot, sir. I need to show Drydock something"_ , went the nervous voice of Starbot. Drydock was immediately suspicious.

Before Drydock could say anything, however, Evac calmly opened the door, only to be greeted by Starbot being flung at him, knocking them out as they fell to the ground. Seconds later, a flashbang rolled into the room.

Drydock yelled, "SCRAP, RU-"

{BANG}

A blinding light and a loud bang and ringing sound overloaded his senses, as he tried to get up from his chair, and ended up tripping on a large cable on the ground. When he tried to get himself up, he heard through the ringing in his ears gunshots through the air, and once his optics had readjusted themselves, he saw Wing Saber and Dreadrock, with bloodied holes in their chests, lying on the floor, and the cowardly Ikard puling to an unseen individual, saying that he'd cooperate to the best of his abilities, to which Drydock heard a quick series of 0s and 1s, and a voice agreeing, and telling Ikard to realign the batteries.

Drydock got himself up to his knees, but felt the muzzle of a gun caress the back of his head. He quickly looked behind him, to see a blue, grey, and red flier Macromaster pointing his arm cannon at him, who then said, "Nuh uh, Autobot. Move again, and you're dead", the flier then said to a green and orange Macromaster, "Aquablast, I've got a bot who's still conscious here."

"Well, you know the drill, Thundercracker", said 'Aquablast', whom himself was watching over the unconscious forms of Claw Jaw and Scuba, "If he moves, make sure he doesn't."

Drydock then looked to the consoles, to see that Ikard was nervously working with a purple and grey Minibot on the gun targeting systems. Next to them, a grey and green Constructibot Macromaster with purple highlights was standing over them, who then said to a flip up holoscreen on his wrist, "Have the naval carrier been taken?"

 _"AFFIRMATIVE"_ , went a robotic voice over his comms, _"PRISONERS HAVE BEEN TAKEN."_

"Good. Are the carrier's targeting systems intact?"

 _"AFFIRMATIVE."_

"Good. It looks like the carrier's targeting systems have been linked to the naval batteries own systems. Make sure those systems are still online until we pull out. Once we're out, destroy them."

 _"AFFIRMATIVE."_

The Constructibot shut off his communications, and then turned to the 2 working at the consoles, "Jolt, got sight on any potential targets?"

"01011001 01100101 01110000 00101110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01010110 01100101 01101000 01101001 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110110 01100101 01110010 01100111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 01100111 01100101 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 01110011 01101001 01100100 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01001001 01100001 01100011 01101111 01101110 00101110 00100000 01010000 01101111 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100010 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101001 01101011 01100101 00101110 00100000 01001100 01101111 01101111 01101011 01110011 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001110 01001111 01000001 00100000 01110110 01101001 01110010 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100101 01100001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01100110 01100110", went 'Jolt' at almost the speed of light.

The Constructibot then looked to Ikard, "'Ikard', right?"

"Um, er, yes sir". fussed Ikard nervously.

"Right, good. I need you to target the Vehicon force amassing outside of Iacon", the Constructibot took a step forward, and asked, in an intimidating nature, "Can you do that?"

"Er, er, y-yes sir. I-I can do that, sir, b-but I'll require the activation code."

"And where's the code?"

"C-Commander Drydock h-has it, sir", Ikard then pointed to Drydock, "H-He remotely sends the c-codes through the command network t-to the, um, to the guns."

The Constructibot hummed in response, and then asked Jolt, "How long will it take to get the codes?"

"01000111 01101001 01101101 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100011", went Jolt, who then responded several seconds later, "01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 00101110 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00101110"

"Right then, where are the Vehicons setting up?"

"01001010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 01110011 01101001 01100100 01100101 00100000 01010011 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100101 01101100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01000110 01101111 01101100 01101100 01111001 00101110"

"Target them, and let the cannons rip", the Constructibot said to the both of them.

"01010010 01101111 01100111 01100101 01110010 00101110"

"Ah, er, y-yes sir", said the ever-a-coward Ikard, who began to prime the batteries for firing.

Drydock couldn't let these terrorists win, and he certainly couldn't let that traitorous little Ikard go unpunished after this blatant betrayal. Drydock quickly swatted away 'Thundercracker's' arm cannon, and got himself up, ready to pounce on Ikard, but a purple laser blast from the Constructibot's pistol went straight through his head, making him fall to the floor, dead.

"You okay, Scrapper?" asked Aquablast.

"Ugh, yeah", replied 'Scrapper', wiping away a drop of energon that had gotten on him, before going to Jolt, "Are the guns primed?"

"01010000 01110010 01101001 01101101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100110 01101001 01110010 01100101 00101100 00100000 01010011 01100011 01110010 01100001 01110000 01110000 01100101 01110010 00101110 00100000 01010111 01100001 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01100100 00101110", went Jolt.

"Let them have it", he ordered.

Jolt began to tap away at one of the consoles, the clicking and tapping of his keyboard accompanied by the sounds of the Yuss naval guns realigning themselves. Just a minute later, a bright flash of blue, and an deafening bang filled the command room, and over a dozen massive blasts of plasma soared through the air, towards the horde of Vehicons that gathered outside of Sentinel's Folly. On the monitor a few minutes later, they could see in the telescope the laser blasts impacting with the Vehicon hordes, obliterating them all in a fiery blaze.

"Job's done, guys", said Scrapper, as he turned to the door, "Let's plant charges around the guns and bail."

"Um", whined Ikard as he rubbed his hands together, "W-What about me?"

"Oh, right", Scrapper turned back round, and looked at the slimy bot, "Thanks for your assistance", he said, before pulling out his pistol and whipping him with it over his head, knocking the white, blue, and purple out with one blow, his yellow eyes going out.

Jolt looked to Scrapper, asking, "01010111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101100 00100000 01010011 01100011 01110010 01100001 01110000 01110000 01100101 01110010 00111111"

"Couldn't trust him to look away as we left", said Scrapper, as he and the rest of Alpha Team began to leave the command room, "Better safe than sorry."

"01000110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101111 01101011 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101001 01110100 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100111 01110101 01111001 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101111 01101011 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000 00100000 01110101 01110011 00101110 00100000 01001010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100001 01111001 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101110"

Scrapper ignored him, and he and the rest of Alpha Team ran through the door and into the corridor, Aquablast sparing a moment to unload the ammo in his gun into the consoles in the room, destroying them all in a satisfying explosion, and letting those still alive in the room burn to death in the ensuing fire.

As the sounds of Alpha Team transforming into their alt modes and speeding down the corridors echoed through the burning command room, several figures suddenly arrived in the room in a bright flash, and surveyed their wrecked surroundings. One of the figures, their leader, saw the bodies of the triplets, and scanned them for life signs, finding that they were still alive.

"9K", said the leader, their voice was stern and filled the room with a mixture or respect, yet also encouraged a sort of worship, the sound of their voice impossible to tell if it was male or female, "Gather those 3 bots there. They will serve well in our Maximal forces."

"Yes sir", said '9K', a white, gold, and blue bot, before moving down to the triples, gesturing 2 other 'Maximals', K-9 and Air Hammer, to help him carry the triples away to safety.

The leader then looked to the unconscious forms of Evac and Starbot, saying to 2 other Maximals, Getout and Dragoyell, "Bring those 2 with us, as well. They will be converted into our ranks as well", the 2 Maximals nodded, and went to retrieve the Autobots. The leader then looked to the dead bodies of Drydock, Wing Saber, and Dreadrock, and said to the Maximal Thunderhoof, "Salvage any sparks, T-cogs, or brain modules from the dead Autobots. They will be useful for the creation of more of our kind."

Thunderhoof muttered to himself, "Ugh, do I's gotta-", the piercing stare of the leader silenced him immediately, and with a gulp, he said, "Um, er, yeah boss", before moving to the corpses, and digging his hands into the bodies, covering his hands in blood.

"Um, Convoy, sir, if I may ask", began the last Maximal in the room, "We know where the rest of the Constructed Cold spark stockpiles are. Why can we not just-"

"Because they will be discovered by the combatants of the coming war, Lio Minor", the leader, 'Convoy' swiftly spoke, "I have told you this before. And besides, even if we did take claim of all of the stockpiles, we would still not have enough sparks and bodies for our tests, and to make up our forces. We will need all of the able and unable bodies that we can."

'Lio Minor' hesitated, before asking, "With all due respect, my lord, how would you know thi-"

"Are you questioning me, Lio Minor?"

"Wha- No, Convoy, sir!" Lio Minor quailed, "No, never, I-"

Convoy cut him off immediately, a firm hand clasping Lio Minor's shoulder, "Please, Lio, do not question our methods. If our goals, being the survival of the entire universe, are to be achieved, we must take every precaution, and take each step carefully, and logically. If we do anything rash, or commit to any action that would jeopardise us, we put all life at risk.l

Lio squirmed under the gaze of the Maximal commander, before muttering, "Yes sir."

Convoy then moved away from Lio Minor, and observed the room once again. Suddenly, the room shook, and pieces of the ceiling began to collapse. The Exiled must've planted their explosives and detonated them. A few of the Maximals looked to the leader in worry as, through what was left of the monitors and viewports, the guns and the naval ships began to explode and fall apart. The leader gave off a hint of surprise, and then raised their arm, and spoke into their comms, "Orcanoch, GroundBridge by 13."

A blinding flash followed, and then, in the blink of an optic, the Maximals were gone.

* * *

 **Iacon**  
 **Border regions**  
 **Outside the Archive Centre**

{SLAM} was the accompanying sound, as Swerve's pipe impacted with the side of the Vehicon's head, green analogue bellowing from the point of impact, and sending the drone tumbling to the floor.

"Got another one!" Swerve yelled back to Bumblebee, who himself had just shot an alien drone through the chest, oily black fluid spraying over the shattered wall near them. Swerve then said, "That's about, ooh, 7!" he quickly dodged a fist from another alien drone, letting a nearby Vehicon finish it off with a shot to the head. Swerve quickly dropped his pipe, shifted into his alt mode and, using a fallen piece of wall as a ramp, smashed into the Vehicon, shattering it's chest, and smashing his own front, dislodging a wheel, and instinctively transforming back into his robot form, sparing a moment to sooth over his newly dented parts, "Ow, that's- Ow, damn- That's 8 now, for me!"

"Oh yeah", loudly replied Bumblebee as he let out another round from his pistol, the shot going through an approaching Vehicon's chest, off lining it instantly, "I've got 10! Top that!"

"Guy! Focus!" yelled Dust Up, as she rolled behind a piece of broken wall as cover, and threw a large rock at the head of a Vehicon, disorienting it, and letting 2 alien drones tear it apart. Dust up then indicated to the Archive Centre, "Take a look at the building!"

The Archive Centre was still aflame, and almost done for. The shell of the building was almost gone, letting it's skeletal structure show. All of the columns that had stood at the sides of the building had now fallen, and the giant antenna that stood at the top of the building was tilted to the side, looking like it would fall over at any minute. Parts of the building's frame had collapsed, creating piles of burning rubble that helped to spread the already expanding flames. Ash smothered the lands and buildings around it, and smoke flew to the sky, shrouding the air in dust and black smog. Around the building, and most likely across the entire city, Autobots, Vehicons, and these new invaders battled in the streets and in the sky, filling the air with laser blasts and projectiles, accompanying the smell of ozone and fresh energon spilling to the ground.

Swerve trudged past the heat being given off by the massive blaze, and yelled, "The building's falling apart!"

"Yeah, we could tell, Swerve!" replied Bumblebee in an equally loud voice.

"Guys, seriously!" Dust Up went, joining in on the loud voices, "I know that earlier I said that we shouldn't go in there, or something, but right now I'm too high on adrenaline to care!"

"So we go in there now!?"

"Yeah, Bee-Bee! We go in there now!"

"Yeah, sod it!" Swerve jumped over the rubble of the building, picking his pipe piece up as he legged it to the Archive Centre, "Let's go!"

"Let's do this!" Bumblebee shifted into his alt mode and sped past Swerve to the building.

"Let's move it out and get this-"

They were all knocked down by a massive explosion erupting from the building.

* * *

 **The ruins of the Archive Centre**

Colossus looked through the new hole in the Archive Centre (Curtesy of Skullgrin) to the battle of Iacon, his prize in his bloodied hand. He could see the fires and smoke spread through the city, creating a thick smog that spread through the air. Lasers and missiles and bullets soared through the air, cutting it in twain like a knife through the most fragile skin. Around the city, the careworn surface of Cybertron was picked away by the explosions and laser fires, the fossilised skin being chipped away to reveal the inherent, still raw blisters of Cybertron, Alpha Centauri was obscured by the thick clouds and warships of the Exiled blockaded the light from reaching the ground, only the rare follicle of light escaping to the ground.

Colossus figured that it was a good time as any to get rid of the name. 'Exiled' didn't really seem terribly fitting anymore, seeing as they were about to finally free Cybertron from it's tyranny, and lift away the self deception that the people had used to shield their eyes away from the horrors of today.

'Deception'... Huh. He could work with that.

Colossus heard his comms chirping, and opened the calling frequency to hear the ever familiar voice of Soundwave, _"Sir, data transmission has been accomplished. The information on the data drive has now been transmitted to every site on the Interchannel."_

"Excellent work, Soundwave", Colossus replied, as he could see the _Kiro_ park near the hole in the building, it's hatch opening to reveal Black Omen and Swift awaiting them. As Skullgrin and Colossus boarded the craft, he said to Soundwave over his comms, "Begin recalling the troops, and divert them to their crafts. We have one groon to do so. Living troops first, Soundwave. Any Galaman or Novaroid drones that are left behind are to initiate their self destruct protocols."

 _"Affirmative. Transmitting now. I shall rejoin you on the Banner of Hope, Colossus."_

"I look forward to seeing you there, my friend."

As Colossus boarded the _Kiro_ , he heard a loud clanging as rustling behind him. He looked behind him, to see a battered and broken Optimus looking at him, rage in his eyes, but his point one percenter spark visible for all the world to see. Black Omen, Skullgrin, and Swift raised their guns to meet the red and blue Macromaster, but Colossus wordlessly ordered them to lower them, with a lazy wave of his hand.

"Well, the prodigal son returns", he chuckled to himself.

"Y-Y-Y-You haven't... W-Won yet... C-Colossus...", the poor boy could barely finish a sentence without stammering, as he lost precious energon to the affects of gravity, as they seeped from his wounds and met with the red hot floor.

"Yes I have, Optimus", said Colossus as the hatch to the _Kiro_ closed with a hiss, "You are simply too stubborn to see it."

As Colossus' ship took off, the side slam of the winds from the blast impacted with Orion, forcing him a foot back, and fanning the flames around him. As the taut floor bent and creased underneath him, he looked to the world outside, the sky bruised in black and purple, only barely able to see the always nascent sunset fall over Cybertron. The sky was alight with flashes of blue, red, orange, and purple, and hadean hues engulfed him in their bright light and heat.

Then, he felt himself drop to his knees. He'd lost too much energon. He could barely move. He tried to move his arms, but felt that they were useless too. The pain that shot across his bloody body was immeasurable, but he found himself unable to cry or scream. His voice box and vocal processers must be too damaged to function.

He felt his conscious slip away, his optics becoming duller and duller. Every second spent awake felt like a chore. He found himself falling sideways onto the floor, his vision becoming tilted 90 degrees.

The ground underneath him gave way, and his vision became a single white beam of light.

* * *

 **In case anyone is wondering about Scrapper, he's basically in a Prime/WFC version of his IDW Don Figureroa design, but in his Classics colours.**


End file.
